Right on both counts and I totally agree with you.

I think law school prepares one to stand before the tough judges of the world, and therefore believe the Socratic method to be absolutley necessary and essential to a proper legal education.

It hasn’t hurt Mespo a bit.

Sorry for the error. I read your CV on the website and saw your birthplace. I made the ignorant assumption which you clarified for me. To make amends, I should initially tell you that I am not licensed in Canada and could only be a poor substitute for local counsel there. However, in this Country most states make actionable a branch of defamation knowns as “false light.” Under that theory an actor is liable in damages and for injunctive relief if the defendant creates:
1). A publication by the Defendant about the Plainitff;

(2). made with actual malice (very similar to that type required by New York Times v. Sullivan in “Defamation” cases);

(3). which places the Plaintiff in a false light;

AND

(4). that would be highly offensive (i.e., embarassing to reasonable persons.

This is but one of several options available to plaintiffs here. You may also have a claim for tortuous and intentional interference in contract if the culprits are attempting to interfere with your employment; intentional infliction of emotional distress; fraud; unlawful appropriation of your likeness or image if done for commercial reasons; slander/libel depending on what was actually said or written; infringement of certain intellectual property rights, and probably many more claims under various Canadian common and statutory law. I would suggest a consultation with local counsel. I am likewise sure that Professor Turley could opine much better than I on your predicament, but I would nip this in the bud before anything gets out of hand. Legal shots over the bow have altered the course of many ships.

I don’t know how to answer this one, I am actually American An English-subtitled video explaining it all can be found at:

I would like to ask a legal question of my own. I have spent the better part of the last three days doing “damage control”, making sure that most people understood that the entire event had been a prank. I had received a fair number of threats and hate mail from the viewers of Liveleak.com in particular. My department chair and the PR-people at my insitutions had also received unwelcome comments. So here’s my question:

How liable are people who purposely edit and post videos out of context such as the first one you saw, and thus taint the names of a person (me) and of a reputable institution like HEC Montreal?

Thank you very much in advance for your feedback.

Regards,
Justin

Jill:

Thank you for your kind support and your concern.

I did enjoy your prank and your French sense of humor. Just one probably ignorant question(and maybe an equally ignorant assumption), with the rich history of Gallic literary and stage humor (Voltaire is my hero), why the fascination with clumsy American physical comedian Jerry Lewis?

Vince, I wish I would have gotten that sage advice.

First, he only called on volunteers. You had to be willing to be skewered and humiliated.

Second, he said he never reduced a students grade for bad classroom performance, but only increased it for good work. I heard (hearsay) that one student(an Army LTC)had his grade upped 15 points for classroom participation.

Third, he tipped the students off to the key method of coping. Go the the law reviews back when the case was decided and get the student case note. Use the 100 hours of student research to flatten the professor. He said that he had been told that it could be an exhilaration experience. Still good advice today.

He read one student’s answer to an exam question to the rest of to show us how it should be done. She wound up on the GW Law faculty for many years.

Thank you for your support of the video, and for keeping things hypothetical thereafter. Let me reassure you, no one was harmed in the video. The “student” whose laptop was smashed was actually an actor, and his laptop an antique which had not functioned in years.

Judging from the students’ reactions, even days after the fact, they absolutely LOVED the prank.

I enjoyed reading the legal arguments nonetheless.

Best regards,
Justin

I agree that a staged event would be the equivalent of an actual event in the mind of a person who experienced it. Even if an explanation is received in short order damage might have been done. I know if someone pulled a gun on me I would be terrified and not likely mollified by learning that it had been staged.

My hunch in this case is: it was April fools and the class probably had enough experience with this teacher to know it was a joke. One thing I do know–if any of Justin’s students were injured they’ll know what to call their case now!!!

I was your typical hyperactive child with a penchant for running around the schoolroom. The good sisters broke me of this without dosing me with Ritalin. They simply stapled my trousers –not my flesh– to the seat of my desk.

When I was drafted into the Army back in ’71 & had to endure Basic at Fort Knox & then AIT at Fort Polk, I didn’t understand why my fellow recruits were whining so much. The rigors of military training were as nothing compared to the tortures of parochial school. All the Army wanted was a superficial conformity & obedience; the nuns were after your soul.

http://www.hec.ca/en/

p.s. mespo, you’ll always have a future in stand-up, but please don’t quit your day job or the blog!

I didn’t watch the video before I responded (my bad). When I did see it, it did look suspicious but I only saw it after Justin told us it was a hoax. So I don’t know for certain if I would have been suspicious had I seen it before Justin’s entry.

Given the manipulation possible with the technology we have today what do people think is the best way to detect fraud (in this case a great prank)?

Rafflaw, I know it wasn’t funny at the time but I certainly loved your description of “enhanced nunual education”!!!

Are you thinking of 3rd parties and/or transferred intent? Here, I think intent could arise if the professor, desired, knew with substantial certainty, and/or acted recklessly… provided of course that this conduct is sufficiently extreme and that someone in the class was severely distressed.

My guess is that smashing up a laptop could be molded into one of these categories; and the professor probably should have known that this act would be upsetting.

Vince: I like your law student distinction. Does the law professor owe a higher duty of care to his students than a professor who teaches a more thick-skinned audience? Law students are a bit high maintenance

There was a case in which a professor staged a shooting as part of the lesson (evidence class??)… wasn’t he liable for IIED?

The students where utterly fooled, and it seems they were not the only ones

Cheers!
JL.

You and I are/were on the same page with this. The last part of my statement was meant to address the part in the blog about banning laptops. My wording was poor and I apologize.

It is a beautiful day here and I hope it is where you are as well!

Jill

Of course I agree with the last part of your statement. A reasonable request from a teacher for a student to put away his/her laptop is very different from that same teacher deliberately breaking it. I fully support such a request, I disagree with a teacher’s purposely destroying someone else’s personal property.

I agree. I can’t think of the number of times some idiot in authority told a young person they’d never amount to anything. Do they time travel? How ignorant and cruel.

On the other hand I don’t think it’s out of line to ask students to put away their laptops under the following circumstances. If you are a teacher who believes everyone in the classroom has something to teach everyone else. If you state this from the beginning of the course and explain how laptops will interfere with this type of learning, then I think it’s fair to not use them. If you don’t or can’t teach this way (due to class size or personal technique) then it is not a reasonable request.

What JT and Susan said–for sure!