Summarizing the Documentary with particular emphasis on the law - Essay Example

The basics of law and the sources of law in United States of America Law can basically be defined as rules that guide the conduct of businesses, persons and the society in general. The rules protect individuals and their belongings from undue interference and outline the punishment that should be meted to those who go against the letter and spirit of the law. Basically, the quality of law as exhibited by American law should be fair and flexible. Law has several schools of thoughts and these are law and economic school, command school, Natural school law, historic school, sociological school, analytical school, and critical legal studies school.

Although the different schools have different definition of law, they basically hold that it is a set of rules and regulation that dictate the social, economic and political aspects of people. In United States of America, there are several sources of law that have played a key role in maintaining order and cohesiveness of the society. These are the English common law, the constitution, judicial precedence, statutes, treaties, and executive orders. Court system and their jurisdiction Basically, there are two court systems in the United States of America.

These are the state court and federal court systems. The state court systems consist of limited jurisdiction trial courts, general jurisdiction trial courts, intermediate appellate courts which analyses the ruling of trial courts in case of an appeal, and the highest state courts or “supreme court of state” which hears appeals from some trial courts and the highest state court. Federal court systems include special federal courts, US District courts located in each state, US court of appeal that have 13 circuits and hear appeals from the districts courts and the Supreme Court located in Washington DC and its jurisdiction is to hear appeals from the highest state courts, Federal district courts, Federal circuit district courts of appeals, and special federal courts.

The jurisdiction of state courts includes cases than cannot be heard by the federal courts and a concurrent jurisdiction that a defendant decides. The federal courts have jurisdiction to hear cases that arise from the US Constitution, federal statutes, treaties, citizen diversity, an amount that exceed $75000 in dispute, federal crimes, and commercial related disputes. An important case involving the jurisdiction of the federal courts is the Hertz Corporation versus Friend that was presented to the supreme court of USA with an intention of determining whether Hertz Corporation was a citizen of California State.

Alternative, judicial and e-dispute resolution Judicial resolution entails a number of processes that include discovery, pleading, pretrial motion and settlement conference. The pleading process involves complaints by the plaintiff, summons by the court, answer by the defendant, cross-complaint, reply filed by the plaintiff, intervention by other interested parties who intend to join the case, consolidation involving integration of lawsuit emanating from the same situation and class action. Example of a close related case is Wal-Mart store inc versus Dukes.

Discovery process entails ascertaining witnesses and the facts of the case. The forms of discoveries are production of documents, interrogatories, mental and physical examination and deposition. Pre trial motion is one in which a party may endeavor to