Riga - On Connecting with the Class at Last

Tonight’s class was all that I had hoped for.  The students began to participate and we had some lively discussions about legal cases on both sides of the Atlantic.  Distributing the class-project materials tonight helped, but I had hoped they would already have read the hypothetical cases I had made up and given out a couple of days earlier.  I recall that we were told the students would not likely do homework assignments because they were already so busy with their other work.  Rather than wait for them to do the exercises on their own – which might be a vain hope in any case - I made them read the cases during the break and then led them in discussing the exercises in class as a group activity.  I had created two cases, one a slip-and-fall in a Riga hotel and other, a products liability case involving a medication manufactured in Latvia and sold in the U.S.  I used these cases in exploring discovery and evidence issues this session.  I’ll use them in upcoming sessions for picking a jury and for getting across the ideas of jurisdiction and minimum contacts.

They found strict liability hard to grapple with.  Lord knows, so do many U.S. attorneys.  If the manufacturer provides instructions and warnings, its duty is considered done in Latvia and no suit would succeed.  As for my hypothetical slip-and-fall, they figure it’s the injured person’s problem and he’ll just have to deal with it.  Seems they still have a vestige of personal responsibility that we’ve somewhat pushed aside.

One of the Finnish students announced at the end that he’s having a party for Finnish Independence Day on Tuesday and would I agree to let class out at 8:00?  He’s inviting everyone (me included), which I assume is the bribe to get class dismissed early.  I told him he’d have to get the entire class to agree, which he didn’t think would be a problem.  He’s a bluff fellow, sounds and looks more Russian than Finnish but has a characteristically Finnish name.  I would feel better running this by my “minders” (who are away this week anyway, which makes me wonder how much they’re minding).  I don’t know what the protocol is at all.  At times it seems very much like a U.S. university but at other times it seems less organized and at still others, more formal.

Grabbed Russian take-out tonight, the same as last night.  There’s a chain here called “Pelmeni,” which specializes in the small Russian dumplings of that name.  One of my favorite Russian dishes, especially with sour cream.  And the scallions to top off with were real scallions, not some freeze-dried analogue.  Washed down with Cēsu beer bought from the supermarket earlier this afternoon – so far, the best beer I’ve had but on the sweet side.