Six landmark cases,
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Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R.
Cardozo's foreseeability doctrine: duty runs only to plaintiffs within the reasonably foreseeable zone of danger.
Hadley v. Baxendale
Foundational rule for consequential damages: recoverable only if arising naturally or reasonably contemplated at contracting.
Marbury v. Madison
Established judicial review: courts must refuse to enforce statutes that conflict with the Constitution.
Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins
Federal courts sitting in diversity must apply state substantive law; there is no general federal common law.
Miranda v. Arizona
Custodial interrogation requires the now-familiar warnings before any statement may be used against a suspect.
Brown v. Board of Education
Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal; overruled the 'separate but equal' doctrine of Plessy in public education.
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.
Abolished the privity requirement in negligence: a manufacturer owes a duty of care to any foreseeable user of an inherently dangerous product.
Vosburg v. Putney
The 'eggshell plaintiff' and intent-to-contact rule: a defendant is liable for all harm flowing from an unlawful touching, even harm no one could have foreseen.
Byrne v. Boadle
Introduced res ipsa loquitur: some accidents so plainly bespeak negligence that the plaintiff need not prove specific wrongdoing.
Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California
Mental-health professionals owe a duty to protect identifiable third parties from serious threats made by their patients.
Garratt v. Dailey
Intent for battery is satisfied by substantial certainty that a harmful or offensive contact will result — no desire to harm required.
Katko v. Briney
A landowner may not use deadly force — such as a spring gun — to defend unoccupied property against non-violent trespass.
Lucy v. Zehmer
A contract's existence is measured by outward manifestations of assent, not undisclosed subjective intent — even where the seller claims he was joking.
Lefkowitz v. Great Minneapolis Surplus Store
A newspaper ad can be a binding offer where its terms are clear, definite, explicit, and leave nothing open to negotiation.
Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co.
A public advertisement promising a reward can be a unilateral offer accepted by performance; deposit of funds shows serious intent.
Hamer v. Sidway
Forbearance from a legal right is sufficient consideration, even where the promisor suffers no economic detriment and the promisee gains no obvious benefit.
Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon
Cardozo implies a duty of best efforts into an exclusive-dealings contract, saving it from the illusoriness defense.
ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg
Shrinkwrap license terms inside the box can be enforceable when the buyer has an opportunity to read them and reject the goods.
Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal & Mining Co.
When the cost of full performance greatly exceeds the resulting increase in property value, damages are limited to diminution in value.
Pierson v. Post
Wild animals are reduced to possession only by capture or mortal wounding coupled with continued pursuit — mere chase creates no property right.
Johnson v. M'Intosh
Only the federal government, as successor to the discovering European sovereign, may acquire title from Native tribes; private purchases from tribes are void.
Kelo v. City of New London
Taking private property to transfer it to private developers for economic revitalization can satisfy the 'public use' requirement of the Fifth Amendment.
State v. Shack
The right to exclude yields when necessary to protect the human dignity and legal rights of persons living on the land as farmworkers.
Moore v. Regents of the University of California
A patient retains no property interest in cells removed from his body, but the physician owes fiduciary duties of disclosure regarding research use.
Van Valkenburgh v. Lutz
Adverse possession requires actual, open, hostile, exclusive, and continuous possession, plus (in New York at the time) substantial improvement or cultivation of the entire claimed parcel.
Pennoyer v. Neff
A state cannot exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident absent personal service within the state or the attachment of in-state property at the outset of the suit.
International Shoe Co. v. Washington
Introduced the 'minimum contacts' framework: personal jurisdiction is proper where a defendant's contacts with the forum make suit consistent with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.
World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson
Foreseeability of a product entering the forum is not enough; the defendant must have purposefully availed itself of the forum for jurisdiction to attach.
Hanna v. Plumer
A valid Federal Rule of Civil Procedure applies in diversity cases even if it conflicts with state procedural law, so long as the Rule is authorized by the Rules Enabling Act and constitutional.
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly
Federal Rule 8 requires a complaint to plead facts sufficient to make a claim to relief 'plausible on its face,' retiring Conley's 'no set of facts' language.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal
Extended Twombly's plausibility standard to all civil actions and clarified the two-step analysis: strip conclusory allegations, then assess plausibility of what remains.
McCulloch v. Maryland
Congress has implied power to enact laws — such as chartering a national bank — that are appropriate means to constitutional ends; states may not tax federal instrumentalities.
Gibbons v. Ogden
Federal commerce power reaches all commercial intercourse among the states, including navigation, and preempts conflicting state monopolies.
Wickard v. Filburn
Congress may regulate purely local activity if, in the aggregate, it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce.
Lochner v. New York
Struck down maximum-hours law for bakers as an unconstitutional interference with the liberty of contract; the case has since been widely repudiated.
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer
The President lacks inherent constitutional power to seize private property (steel mills) absent congressional authorization; Jackson's tripartite framework governs the analysis.
District of Columbia v. Heller
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense in the home.
Katz v. United States
The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places; a warrantless recording of a phone-booth conversation violates a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Riley v. California
Police generally must obtain a warrant before searching the digital contents of a cell phone seized incident to arrest.
Regina v. Dudley and Stephens
Necessity is not a defense to murder: shipwrecked sailors who killed and ate the cabin boy to survive were guilty of murder.
Jacobson v. United States
The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime independent of the government's inducement.
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
Fixed racial quotas in university admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause, but race may be considered as one factor among many to promote diversity.
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