Photo by: Erik Briones
On Wednesday, December 1, 2021, the Supreme Court came to Hastings High School and let the students see what they do.
When the actual hearing started, all of the students had to turn off their phones if they were bringing them into the auditorium. However, most students left their phones in their lockers. On the way into the auditorium, students had to walk through metal detectors and have their names checked to make sure they were supposed to be in there.
The first argument that was before the Supreme Court was Susman vs. Kearney Towing and Repair Center. Personally in my experience, the lawyer that had represented the client had strong arguments against Kearney. When I didn’t understand something, coincidentally the Supreme Court asked him to define what he meant and he did. He gave it in terms that the court would understand and in simple terms for the students that were watching.
In this case, Susman went to the Kearney Towing and Repair Center and they put a nineteen-year-old tire on Susman’s car. This led to a legal injury which is also known as a direct injury. On June 10, 2014, Kearney Towing and Repair Center put the tire on which led to the accident that caused this case. Due to Kearney putting on the bad tire, Susman got in an accident that paralyzed him.
When Susman first tried to sue Kearney, he was denied his hearing. Since this case is an atypical case, the Supreme Court wanted to hear it again. Susman’s lawyer decided to reverse their decision and got it sent back to the Supreme Court. An atypical case is where the hospitalization caused by the injury involves a transfer, sign-out against medical advice, ends in death, includes non-acute days, or has a length of stay beyond the trim point (outlier).
For the lawyer who had represented the Kearney Towing and Repair Center, she didn’t really make sense to me. She had made some valid points like the fact that this was a contract remedy. This term most often refers to the outcome of a lawsuit where the victim or claimant has received compensation, be it in the form of enforced right, penalty, monetary return, or otherwise. Besides this point, the rest didn’t exactly make sense to me.
In one of her other points, she contradicted herself. She said that Susman had had four years to file a lawsuit against the Kearney Towing and Repair Center due to the wrong of action but later said that he had filed one in 3 years. It didn’t make sense to me since it was within the four-year time limit. Another point that had confused me was that Kearney Towing and Repair Center had known the tire was bad. She said, “The tire allegedly defected when it was put on the car…” A defective product is one that does not perform as it should or one that causes unexpected injuries. It could cause damages because of a defective design or manufacturing flaw, or it could be defective because there were insufficient warnings to consumers about the risks of using the product. So due to this, in my opinion, the client, Susman, had won this case due to the points the lawyer that represented Kearney Towing and Repair Center had given.
As the ending started approaching, the Supreme Court allowed a student Q&A. Sophomore Charity Marino, go up and ask two questions. One of her questions was, “What was the difference between today in our auditorium and in an actual court today?” One of the members of the supreme court had replied with, “In court, we don’t have people sitting in the gallery unless it was a lawyer for the next case that was being gone over. Now we have a full ‘gallery.’
Lastly, her next question was, “What is the stress that you go through if you might make a wrong decision?” One of the justices said, “My principle comparison is contrasting my opinion of being a lawyer. That’s my external. As a judge, it’s more of internal pressure. We have 7 voices and 7 minds. We all need our goals to get to the right conclusion. There is a lot of pressure, we don’t want it to be overturned.”
For the verdict of these cases, you can go to https://supremecourt.nebraska.gov/programs-services/community-outreach/supreme-court-high-school-law-school-oral-arguments/hs
