The first step in preparing your case law analysis is to locate a published court decision and select an organization you believe would be impacted by the decision. 

Choose a decision about contracts. In your briefing, you must be able to understand the court’s decision, summarize it, and evaluate it. You may choose any business-related court case, either state or federal, as long as it is relevant to contract law. Be sure it is a case where the court is called on to decide a question of contract law. To help you get started, use the Capella University Library Legal Research Library Guide and these well-known searchable databases of court cases. Try to imagine yourself as either the plaintiff or the defendant in the cases you read to make these cases meaningful to your life.

United States Supreme Court Cases.

LII: Supreme Court: Most Recent Decisions.

Legal Topics.

Oyez, Inc.

Select an organization not a party to the case that you believe would be impacted by that court decision. It can be an organization you work for or have worked for, an organization you would like to work for, or some other organization.

Use these resources to help you with this assignment:

Analyzing a Case.

This multimedia walks you through a written court decision and explains each part's purpose.

Business Law Foundational Concepts.

This multimedia will help you to understand your reading materials and articles you find.

Click Transcriipt. (After you open the multimedia, the Transcriipt link is located at the lower right corner of the screen.)

Use the transcriipt as another resource to quickly look up some of the more common terms. This terminology will be useful in personal, scholarly, and professional settings.

Four Ethical Theories.

This multimedia sets forth several approaches to ethical thinking that can be applied to business.

The Case Analysis Report: Executive Briefing Exemplar [DOCX] shows a sample case law analysis. You may wish to refer to it as you work on your assignment.

Instructions

Once you have selected a decision and an organization impacted by the decision, assume you’re a senior manager in the organization you selected and that you were asked to prepare an analysis of the court decision and brief the executive team of the organization about the impact the case might have on the company. Your briefing should include a summary of the case, as well as an evaluation of how the court’s decision impacts the organization from a business, legal, and ethical perspective. Be sure to list your case citation in the References page at the end of your assignment.

Step 1: Exhibit information literacy skills as applied to business law.

Identify the court, the parties who are before the court, and the date of the decision.

Ensure that your briefing provides an accurate context in terms of who brought the lawsuit and the outcome of the case.

Report research from a recognized authority that adds insight into the meaning, history, or impact of the case with relevant legal research from credible databases or online sources. 

Step 2: Summarize the facts and ruling of a legal case and its impact on businesses.

Provide a brief background and context associated with the case. Summarize the facts in no more than 1–2 paragraphs.

Identify the specific disagreement between the parties. Was there a dissenting opinion? If so, explain it.

Summarize the court’s ruling, including its rationale.

Analyze the impact of the case on businesses, including both negative and positive impacts.

Step 3: Explain how the court decision impacts legal and ethical compliance in a business environment.

Identify the ethical and legal implications for a business that were suggested by the court's decision.

Discuss whether or not the conduct of a party in the case was ethical or unethical.

Propose and explain an ethical theory that describes why a party's conduct was ethical or unethical.

Step 4: Explain how a legal case could impact a specific organization not a party to the case.

Explain the impact of the court’s decision on your selected organization. In light of the court’s ruling, how might the executive team of the organization make future decisions or policy?

Additional Requirements

Based on your executive audience, your executive briefing should be no more than three pages, in addition to a References page, and should be well organized and written in clear, succinct language. Follow APA rules for attributing content to sources that support your analysis and conclusions.

Your submission should meet the following requirements:

Written communication: Write in complete sentences free from errors that detract from the overall message.

Font and font size: Arial, 12 point.

Format and length: Double spaced, 2–3 pages.

Citations: Include complete citations of your sources along with a References page. Review Evidence and APA for more information on how to cite your sources.

Review the assignment scoring guide for details on how your assignment will be graded.