2. Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company
Civil Law
Gramshaw v. Ford Motor Company (119 Cal.App.3d 757, 174 Cal.Rptr. 348) was personal injury tort case decided in Orange County California in February 1978 and affirmed by a California appellate court in May The lawsuit involved the safety of the design of the Ford Pinto automobile, manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. The jury awarded plaintiffs $127.8 million in damages, the largest ever in US product liability and personal injury cases. Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company was one of the most widely publicized of the more than a hundred lawsuits brought against Ford in connection with rear-end accidents in the Pinto,
On appeal, Ford contested the trial court judgement on the basis of errors, and contested the punitive damages award on the grounds of an absence of malice and that the punitive damages award was not authorized by statute and was unconstitutional. The appellate court affirmed the trial court.
Trial[edit]
A 1972 Pinto rear-end impact and fire in Orange County, California resulted in the death of the driver Lily Gray and severe injury to passenger Richard Grimshaw. Lawsuits were combined for trial. The jury awarded $127.8 million in damages; $125 million in punitive damages and $2,841,000 in compensatory damages to Grimshaw and $665,000 in compensatory damages to the family of Gray. The jury award was the largest ever in US product liability and personal injury cases.The jury award was the largest against an automaker until $150 million in Hardy vs. General Motors in 1996.
The judge reduced the jury's punitive damages award to $3.5 million, which he later said was "still larger than any other punitive damage award in the state by a factor of about five."

3. Gideon v. Wainwright, (1963) Criminal Law
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In it, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states are required under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases to represent defendants who are unable to afford to pay their own attorneys. The case extended the right to counsel, which had been found under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to impose requirements on the federal government, by ruling that this right imposed those requirements upon the states as well.
Between midnight and 8:00 a.m. on June 3, 1961, a burglary occurred at the Bay Harbor Pool Room in Panama City, Florida. An unknown person broke a door, smashed a cigarette machine and a record player, and stole money from a cash register. Later that day, a witness reported that he had seen Clarence Earl Gideon in the poolroom at around 5:30 that morning, leaving with a wine bottle and money in his pockets. Based on this accusation alone, the police arrested Gideon and charged him with breaking and entering with intent to commit petty larceny.
Gideon appeared in court alone as he was too poor to afford counsel, whereupon the following conversation took place:
The COURT: Mr. Gideon, I am sorry, but I cannot appoint counsel to represent you in this case. Under the laws of the State of Florida, the only time the court can appoint counsel to represent a defendant is when that person is charged with a capital offense. I am sorry, but I will have to deny your request to appoint counsel to defend you in this case.
GIDEON: The United States Supreme Court says I am entitled to be represented by counsel.

4. Wilkes v. Wood (1763) Civil Law
The Lord Chief Justice then summoned up the evidence of the whole, and observed it was an action of trespass, to which the defendant had pleaded first not guilty, and then a special justification. He then went through the particulars relating to the justification, the King's speech, the libel No. 45.
Information given, that such a libel was published,
Lord Halifax granting a warrant; messengers entering Mr. Wilkes's house; Mr. Wood directed to go thither only with a message, and remaining altogether inactive in the affair.
If the jury should be of opinion, that every step was properly taken as represented in the justification, and should esteem it fully proved, they must find a verdict for the defendant. But if on the other hand they should view Mr. Wood as a party in the affair, they must find a verdict for the plaintiff, with damages. This was a general direction his Lordship gave the jury, and he then went into the particulars of the evidence. The chief part of the justification, he observed, consisted in proving Mr. Wilkes the author, and the evidence given, together with the letters to Kersley plainly shew, that Mr. Wilkes was generally so. Then as to No. 45, the evidence was of two sorts, first a letter to fix it upon him, and the other general: as to the proof of the republication of The North Britons given by Currie, supposing it of itself sufficient, of which there was a doubt, it did not extend to the present case, to justify a warrant issued several weeks previous to that period. As to the letter, the gentlemen must take that out with them, together with The North Briton, No. 45, and allow all the weight to the circumstance they think it will admit of.

5. Gulla v. Triangle Shirtwaist Co. (1914)
Criminal Law
It was a warm spring Saturday in New York City, March 25, On the top three floors of the ten-story Asch Building just off of Washington Square, employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory began putting away their work as the 4:45 p.m. quitting time approached. Most of the several hundred Triangle Shirtwaist employees were teenage girls. Most were recent immigrants. Many spoke only a little English.
Just then somebody on the eighth floor shouted, "Fire!" Flames leapt from discarded rags between the first and second rows of cutting tables in the hundred- foot-by-hundred-foot floor. Triangle employee William Bernstein grabbed pails of water and vainly attempted to put the fire out. As a line of hanging patterns began to burn, cries of "fire" erupted from all over the floor. In the thickening smoke, as several men continued to fling water at the flames, the fire spread everywhere--to the tables, the wooden floor trim, the partitions, the ceiling.

6. Crawford v. Washington (2004)
Criminal
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court decision that reformulated the standard for determining when the admission of hearsay statements in criminal cases is permitted under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The Court held that cross-examination is required to admit prior testimonial statements of witnesses who have since become unavailable.
Michael Crawford and his wife Sylvia Crawford confronted Kenneth Lee over an allegation that Lee had attempted to rape Mrs. Crawford. Michael Crawford stabbed Lee in the torso. Crawford claimed he had acted in self-defense when he believed Lee had picked up a weapon. Lee denied doing anything that might make Crawford believe he was trying to attack him.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Crawford were questioned by police after receiving a Miranda warning. Mr. Crawford said to the police that he was not sure if Mr. Lee had a weapon, but that Crawford believed at the time that Lee did. Mrs. Crawford, being interrogated separately, at first said that she had not seen the attack, but under further questioning said that she had seen the attack and that Lee was not holding a weapon.

7. Harkness v. Trans World Airlines (1958)
Criminal
Hardison was hired by Trans World Airlines in a department which need to remain open 24 hour per day, 365 days a year. Some time after he was hired, Hardison became a member of the World Wide Church of God, a Sabbatarian group which requires that the Sabbath is on Saturday and must be strictly observed. Hardison's was therefore unable to work from sunset Friday until sunrise on Saturday without violating his religious beliefs.
The company's seniority system allowed employees to choose shifts based upon who was most senior. When Hardison switched from one building in the department to another, he moved to the bottom of the seniority list and became unable to have a shift that accommodated his observance of the Sabbath.
Hardison was fired for insubordination when he refused to work on Saturdays and so he sued, claiming that his employers had failed to make reasonable accommodations for his religious beliefs. The company, however, argued that accommodating his religious beliefs would have forced them to violate the seniority rules of its labor agreement and that would have impacted other workers.
Court Decision
With Justice White writing the majority opinion, the Court decided 7-2 that TWA adequate efforts to accommodate Hardison's religious beliefs and that the company was justified in firing him when he refused to comply with his work assignments.

8. Brady v. Maryland, (1963) Criminal
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the prosecution had withheld from the criminal defendant certain evidence. The defendant challenged his conviction, arguing it had been contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Maryland prosecuted Brady and a companion, Boblit, for murder. Brady admitted being involved in the murder, but claimed Boblit had done the actual killing. The prosecution had withheld a written statement by Boblit confessing that he had committed the act of killing by himself. The Maryland Court of Appeals had affirmed the conviction and remanded the case for a retrial only on the question of punishment.
The Court's Decision[edit]
The Supreme Court held that withholding exculpatory evidence violates due process "where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment"; and the court determined that under Maryland state law the withheld evidence could not have exculpated the defendant but was material to the level of punishment he would be given. Hence the Maryland Court of Appeals' ruling was affirmed.

9. United States v. Leon, (1984) Criminal
United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), was a Supreme Court case about drugs in which the Supreme Court of the United States created the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule.
On August 1981, police in Burbank, California received a tip identifying Patsy Stewart and Armando Sanchez as drug dealers. Police began surveillance of their homes and followed leads based on the cars that frequented the residences. The police identified Ricardo Del Castillo and Alberto Leon as also being involved in the operation. Based on this surveillance and information from a second informant, a detective wrote an affidavit and a judge issued a search warrant. The police conducted the search, but the search warrant was later found to be invalid because the police lacked the probable cause for a warrant to be issued in the first place. The evidence obtained in the search was upheld anyway, because the police performed the search in reliance on the warrant, meaning they acted in good faith. This became known as the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule.
White clarifies that suppression of evidence should continue in cases where the magistrate was misled by information supplied in an affidavit in "bad faith". As long as the person writing the affidavit wrote it in good faith, the decision is that of the magistrate and the exclusionary rule serves no useful function. The officers enforcing the warrant must be able to rely on the decision of the magistrate.