Eastwood, Lott and McCarthy Solicitors

30Read the letter again and find any information that Charles did not give Nick during the interview.

31 Once Nick has read the letter, what questions would he need to ask to find out:

1 exactly what happened?

2 what action Charles now wants to take?

Key terms 2: Defamation

32 If Charles does not sign the retraction, there is a chance that Carmecom might sue him for defamation. Complete the explanation of the tort of defamation using the words in the box.

libel slander statement tort

Defamation is the term used to describe the 1)................................ of making a

false 2)................................ of fact that injures someone's reputation. Common-
law systems distinguish two forms of defamation. 3)...............................

describes the publication of false and malicious statements or pictures that cause

injury to another person. 4)................................ describes the use of spoken

words to harm someone's reputation.

Speaking 3: Lawyer-client interview

33 After discussing the case with Charles, Nick decides to refer it to one of the
volunteer lawyers. Work with a partner to conduct an initial lawyer-client interview.

Student A: You are Charles. Consider what you said during the initial

lawyer-client interview, as well as the contents of the letter from Carmecom's lawyers. What really happened? Prepare yourself for an interview with the volunteer lawyer.

Student B: You are the volunteer lawyer. Consider what you have already

been told about the case and prepare for your first interview with Charles. Use the WASP approach illustrated in Exercise 26.

34 Discuss in groups. What should the lawyer advise Charles to do?

riting: Reply to a demand letter defending or denying the allegations made

35 Put the elements of a reply to a demand letter (a-e) into the order in which you
would expect to see them. Note that this letter also includes a counter-demand.

a Reference to the claims made by the other side: alleged ... / allegations made by ...

b What you want the other side to do and the consequences if these demands are ignored (this would only be included if you decide to make a counter-demand, e.g. for your client to be refunded the money for his laptop): We look forward to receiving ... by... ... failing which, we will...

c Explanation of your role in the case: We write to advise that we ... ... has been referred to us.

d Reference to the case or client in question: Re:...

e Your client's defence to the claim or denial of the allegations made: Our client denies / accepts / refutes / contends ...

Decide on the best defence for Charles and write a reply to Carmecom's iemand letter using the guidelines in Exercise 35.

Unit 3 Tort law

Language Focus

1 Word formationComplete these tables by filling in the correct noun and adjective forms of the verbs listed.

verb	noun
misrepresent	misrepresentation
interfere
settle
injure
sue
award
rule

noun	adjective
negligence
liability
intention
compensation
procedure
reason
appeal

2 Legal verbsComplete the excerpt below from a case brief using the verbs in the box. affirmed appealed awarded found for found that reversed sued

CASE:Ventriceili v. Kinney System Rent a Car, Inc.

FACTS:Kinney rented a car that had a defective trunk¹. He and a friend were standing on the street, trying to get the parked car's trunk shut, when someone named Maldonado crashed his car into Ventriceili.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY:Ventriceili 1).. «^........ Kinney for negligence.The Trial Court

2).................. Ventriceili and 3)................... him $550K. Kinney 4).................... The Appellate

Court 5).................. and dismissed the case. Ventriceili appealed.The New York Supreme

Court 6)................... the Appellate Court and dismissed the case.The New York Supreme

Court 7).................. , while Kinney's negligence was a cause of the accident, it was not the

proximate cause.

¹ (UK) boot

3 Interview questionsRespond to these statements made by a client with an appropriate question that a lawyer might ask in an interview. Try to use the three question types you learned - open question, negative question, asking for a yes or no response - at least once each.

1 The facts of the case are very simple.

2 I rented a car with a broken trunk from Kinney System Rent a Car.

3 The trunk of the car wouldn't close.

4 I tried to close the trunk, and my friend helped me.

5 Then we heard a crashing noise.

Criminal law

THE STUDY OF LAWLead-in

1 A crime is any act, or omission of an act, in violation of a public law. There are many different crimes, or offences.How many of the offences in the box do you know? Choose four and tell a partner what you think they are. Then look up any words you don't know in a dictionary.

armed robbery arson assault battery bribery burglary domestic violence drug trafficking drunk driving embezzlement extortion forgery fraud homicide insider dealing joyriding kidnapping larceny manslaughter money laundering obstruction of justice rape shoplifting stalking tax evasion theft vandalism

2 Crimes which are typically committed by office employees and salaried
professionals are known as white-collar crimes(or business/corporate
crimes). Which of the crimes listed in Exercise 1 are white-collar crimes?

Reading 1: Criminal law

3 Read the text on page 40 and answer these questions.

1 How do criminal law cases and civil law cases differ in the way they are initiated?

2 Name the four most common categories of criminal offence.

3 In what way is the standard of proof different for criminal and civil cases?

4 What is the difference between a felony and a misdemeanour? Does your jurisdiction make such a distinction?

4 Match the verbs (1-6) with the nouns they collocate with in the text (a-f).

1 commit	a
2 resolve	b
3 bring	c
4 render	d
5 sentence	e
6 suspend	f

a suit an offender a verdict a crime a sentence a dispute

Look at each of the verb-noun pairs in Exercise 4 and, with a partner, take turns to discuss who typically carries out each of the actions: an offender, a victim, a lawyer, the court or a judge. For each collocation there is more than one possible answer.

Footnote 2 on page 40 refers to the OJ Simpson case, which is an example of an event which gave rise to both a crime and a tort. What is the difference between a crime and a tort?

Criminal law, sometimes (although rarely) called penal law, involves the prosecutionby the state of a person for an act that has been classified as a crime.This contrasts with civil law, which involves private individuals and organisations seeking to resolve legal disputes. Prosecutions are initiated by the state through a prosecutor,while in a civil case the victimbrings the suit. Some jurisdictionsalso allow private criminal prosecutions.

Depending on the offence and the jurisdiction, various punishments are available to the courts to punish an offender(see Exercise 12). A court may sentencean offender to execution, corporal punishmentor loss of liberty (imprisonmentor incarceration); suspend the sentence; impose a fine; put the offender under government supervision through paroleor probation;or place them on a community service order.

Criminal law commonly proscribes- that is, it prohibits - several categories of offences: offences against the person (e.g. assault), offences against property (e.g. burglary), public-order crimes (e.g. prostitution)and business, or corporate, crimes (e.g. insider dealing).

Most crimes (with the exception of strict liability crimessuch as statutory rape¹ and certain traffic offences) are characterised by two elements: a criminal act (actus reus)and criminal intent (mens rea).To secure a conviction, prosecutors must prove that both actus reus and mens rea were present when a particular crime was committed.

In criminal cases, the burden of proofis often on the prosecutor to persuade the trier (whether judgeor jury)that the accusedis guilty beyond a reasonable doubtof every element of the crime charged.If the prosecutor fails to prove this, a verdictof not guiltyis rendered. This standard of proof contrasts with civil cases, where the claimantgenerally needs to show a defendantis liable on the balance of probabilities(more than 50% probable). In the USA, this is referred to as the preponderance of the evidence.

Some jurisdictions distinguish between felonies(more serious offences, such as rape)and misdemeanours(less serious offences, such as petty theft).It is also worth noting that the same incident may sometimes lead to both a criminal prosecution and an action in tort.²

¹ In many jurisdictions, it is illegal for anyone to have sexual intercourse with a minor. This is a strict
liability crime: the offender will still be guilty of a crime even if he or she believed the partner was of
legal, consenting age.

² The OJ Simpson case, for instance, is a famous example of this. This case is dealt with in Exercise 11,

7 Complete the extract below from a law textbook by using the verbs in the box and check your answer to Exercise 6.

are tried is brought is committed is committed is fined is punished is put is resolved was caused

A crime is a wrong which 1).................................. against

society. The wrongdoer 2).................................. : he or she

3)................................ in prison or 4).................................. a sum of

money. A tort, on the other hand, is a wrong which

5)................................ against an individual. The injured party

can sue the wrongdoer and receive damages from the court. Criminal sanctions exist to make society safer and to keep people from committing certain acts. Tort remedies exist to make the injured party whole again for the harm which

6)................................ by the wrongdoer.

A key difference between the two is that a crime requires a criminal intent (mens rea), whereas a tort can result without intent to cause harm on the wrongdoer's part.

Crimes 7)................................. in the criminal courts. An action

8)................................ by a governmental body against the

wrongdoer. A tort, conversely, 9).................................. in the

civil courts; the injured party brings an action against the wrongdoer.

8 Give a short presentation on the main differences between a crime and a tort.
Include these points: the parties, the outcomes, the terminology and procedure
and the standard of proof. Refer to your own jurisdiction in your presentation.

Language use i: Passive constructions

9 The textbook excerpt above contains several examples of passive verb
constructions. Why do you think the passive voice is used in these sentences?
In which of the examples above is the agent of the action (the subject which
carries out the action) named?

10 Complete these rules for forming passive constructions:

v_ The passive consists of two verb forms. The first is a form of the auxiliary

verb 1)................................... The second is the 2)................................... form

of the main verb. ^ Usually, the agent is not named in a passive sentence. If the agent is

named, it is often expressed in a phrase beginning with the preposition

3)...................................

Unit 4 Criminal law

11 Complete this description of the procedural history of the OJ Simpson case using the passive forms of the verbs in brackets. Because a procedural history describes what happened in a case, all of the verbs will be in the past simple passive.

1 In 1994, the former American football star and actor OJ Simpson

............................... (charge) with the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown

Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

2 He................................ (try) in criminal court tor murder. After a lengthy and

highly publicised trial, he................................. (acquit) the following year.

3 However, in a subsequent civil action in 1997, Simpson..................................

(find) liable for the wrongful death of Goldman and.................................

(sentence) to pay $33.5 million in damages.

Key terms 1: Punishments

12 Match the following sentence halves to form explanations of punishments
which are available to the courts. Why do you think the passive is used in
these examples?

1 When someone is sentenced to a they are put in prison for a crime.

execution, b they are given a period of time when they must behave well

2 When someone is placed on a and not commit any more crimes in order to avoid being community service order, sent to prison.

3 When someone is sentenced to c they have to pay an amount of money as a punishment for imprisonment, breaking a law.

4 When someone is put on parole, d they are killed as a legal punishment for a crime.

5 When someone is put on probation, e they are released before their prison sentence is finished.

6 When someone is fined, with the agreement that they will behave well.

f the court requires an offender to perform unpaid work in their spare time and to contribute to their community.

13 Discuss the punishments listed in Exercise 12 with a partner. Which are the
most effective? Which are the least effective? Give reasons for your answers.

Listening i: White-collar crime in the 21st century

You are going to hear a law professor being interviewed on a university radio station programme. Professor Dohn Poulos is a faculty member at the University of California Davis School of Law. After practising law in California, he introduced the law school's first course on white-collar crime.

14 ^$ 4.1 Listen to the interview. Does Professor Poulos think that white-collar crime is less serious than, as serious as or more serious than violent street crime?

15 4c4.1 Listen again and decide whether these statements are true (T) or false (F), according to the professor.

1 New technology has led to a decrease in white-collar crime.

2 Street crime is generally punished more harshly than white-collar crime.

3 Increasingly, white-collar crime is committed by employees high up in the corporate hierarchy.

4 The number of people who are victims of white-collar crime is significant.

5 White-collar crime has had little effect on the US economy.

Language use 2: Talking about cause and effect

16 4i 4.1 In the interview, Professor Poulos talks about changes in white-collar
crime and the effect of white-collar crime on society. Listen again and complete
these extracts.

1 The internationalisation of the economy.................................... more

opportunities for white-collar crime.

2 While violent crime frequently.................................. the victims of that

crime, it is usually fairly limited.

3 But when you have a savings and loans scandal, as we've seen in the

past, or an Enron scandal, those crimes.................................... millions of

people.

4 Enron.................................. large, large numbers of people.

5 The other is the sheer mass of injuries inflicted on investors in cases like Enron, which the system of investing in the USA.

6 Part of the slow recovery of the economy................................... white-collar

crime on the investment environment.

17 Match the two halves of the sentences.

1 Rising poverty in US cities has led a an impact on the whole economy.

2 Anti-social behaviour adversely b older people, as they sometimes lose

their life savings.

3 Knife crime mostly c affects the communities we live in.

4 White-collar crime has d impacts young men.

5 Fraud has a big impact on e to a rise in gun crime.

Speaking 1: White-collar crime

18 Discuss these questions with a partner. As much as possible, make use of the
expressions in Exercise 16.

1 How serious do you think white-collar crime is? What do you think are the most important effects of white-collar crime on society?

2 Should people who commit business crimes be punished in the same way as people who commit other crimes?

3 Have there been any well-publicised cases of corporate crime in your jurisdiction?

Reading 2: White-collar crime: insider dealing and market abuse

One type of white-collar crime is insider dealing (also known as insider trading). It refers to the act of trading in securities by people who have confidential information about a company's finances or operations. The article on the next page deals with the first case to be tried under the Financial Services and Markets Act, a UK Act of Parliament which created a new regulatory body for the financial services industry.

Unit 4 Criminal law

19 Read through the article below quickly and answer these questions.

1 What is the profession of the appellant?

2 Which crime was he found guilty of?

3 What did he know about the company in question?

4 How much profit did the appellant make on the sale of the shares?

FSA fines auditor for market abuse

The Financial Services and Markets Tribunal has upheld a Financial Services Authority (FSA) case against Mr Arif Mohammed, a former Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) audit manager, who was fined £10,000 for committing market abuse. This is the first f me the market abuse provisions in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) have been the subject of a Tribunal decision.

Mr Mohammed bought shares in Delta pic, a London Stock Exchange listed electrical and engineering services company, based on his knowledge that the company intended to sell its electrical division. Mr Mohammed became aware of this confidential information because Delta's electrical division was an audit client of PwC, and Mr Mohammed worked on the company's audit.

In July 2002, Mr Mohammed first became aware of the proposed sale of Delta's electrical division. He was told that this information was confidential and not to be discussed with company officials. Although Mr Mohammed began handing over

the responsibility for elements of Delta's audit in September 2002, he remained on the audit team assigned to Delta throughout the period leading up to the disposal announcement. In particular, Mr Mohammed remained responsible for planning staff to work on Delta and had reason to know about the sale's progress because of its impact on resource planning.

At the end of November 2002, Mr Mohammed was aware that the sale process was ongoing and was getting close to agreement. Based on this informaton, he purchased 15,000 shares in Delta on 29 November 2002 at 80p each. Delta announced "he disposal on 9 December 2002, and Mr Mohammed sold his shares the following day at 105p each, making a profit of £3,750.

The Tribunal held that the information Mr Mohammed had about the proposed deal was sufficient and precise enough to be considered as relevant information according to the market abuse provisions.

20 Read the article again, and decide whether these statements are true (T) or
false (F). If a statement is false, correct it.

1 The case was heard before the European Court of Justice.

2 Mr Mohammed was sentenced to imprisonment for his crime.

3 The defendant was not at all responsible for the audit of the company.

4 He knew about the progress of the planned sale.

21 Find words in the text that mean the same as these underlined words.

1 secret information

2 to buy shares

3 suggested deal

4 the Tribunal decided

5 market aouse laws

22 What do you think can be done to prevent cases of market abuse (like the one
described above) from occurring?

LAW IN PRACTICE

Lead-in

Crimes involving identity theft are becoming increasingly common. Many people think nothing of giving away personal information, and this can be abused by criminals. Lawyers can help clients who may be at risk of identity theft by placing a fraud alert on their credit file, closing bank accounts, filing a police report and checking for more instances of fraud.

23 a Discuss these questions in small groups.

1 How would you define identity theft?

2 What examples of identity theft can you think of?

b Compare your ideas with this definition given by the Identity Theft Resource Center.

Identity theft is a crime in which an impostor obtains key pieces of personal identifying information (PII), such as social security numbers and driver's licence numbers, and uses them for their own personal gain. This is called ID theft. It can start with lost or stolen wallets, stolen mail, a data breach, a computer virus, phishing, a scam or paper documents thrown out by you or a business.

Key terms 2: Identity theft

24 There are several common kinds of identity theft. Match the examples
(1-6) with the definitions (a-f).

1 bin raiding¹ a stealing credit/debit card numbers by using a special storage device

2 skimming ^when P^rocess'ⁿ£ ^carcls (often in order to make illegal copies)²

b fraudulently gaining access to personal information from financial

3 phishing institutions, telephone companies and other sources

4 changing addresses ^{c takin}S wallets, mail and other items containing personal information

without permission

5 stealing d pretending to be a financial institution or company and sending

6 pretexting spam or pop-up messages to get people to reveal personal

information e sending someone's billing statements to another location by

completing a change of address form f looking through rubbish for bills or other paper containing detailed

information

25 Which of the above kinds of identify theft are a problem in your country?
Have you ever been the victim of any of the above?

I dumpster diving

h devices first came to public attention when it was reported that restaurant employees had been them to record information when processing cards. Restaurant patrons were advised by anti-campaigners not to let their credit cards be taken away from the table. Cards are now commonly d in front of diners using wireless devices.

Unit 4 Criminal law

Listening 2: Podcasts

The Internet provides a lot of useful information for legal practitioners who need to keep up to date with developments in the law. Specialist blogs are one example of constantly updated sources of information, and there are many law-related podcasts that can be downloaded onto an mp3 player and listened to during those spare minutes between appointments. See www.podcast.net for a comprehensive list of audio and video podcasts.

26 ^c4.2^».5 Listen to four short clips taken from law-related podcasts. Which of the common kinds of identity theft described in Exercise 24 is being described in each?

27 ^4.6,4.7 Listen to the full versions of podcasts 1 and 2 and answer these questions.

1 Why might a victim of identity theft not realise that they have been targeted?

2 What must potential creditors do when you have placed a fraud alert on your credit report?

3 Phishing can involve sending email to a person in order to get them to reveal personal information. What other example of phishing is given?

4 Why may banks refuse to compensate people a second time for losses caused due to phishing?

5 How are banks contributing to the problem of phishing?

28 ^4.8,4.9 Listen to the full versions of podcasts 3 and 4 and answer these
questions.

1 The stolen laptop contained information on how many Hewlett Packard
employees?

a 196,000 b 19,600 c 1,960

2 Why might the stolen information be inaccessible?
a It is impossible to extract the data.

b The thieves do not have the encryption key. c The encryption key can no longer be used.

3 According to the survey, how many bins contained both a bank account
number and associated sort code?

a one in five

b 72%

c two in five

4 How many Americans have been the victims of identity theft?
a 99.9 million

b 19.9 million c 9.9 million