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A skillful, comprehensive, working knowledge of Administrative Law overall can be of great benefit to the law student, as well as the graduate of any law school, be it traditional brick and mortar or non-traditional.

There are many areas of law that fall into the realms of Administrative Law, and by having specialized in this comprehensive field of law, I not only have developed a nice practice, but I also have benefited personally from having developed competency in this wide practice area.

A very recent example was a matter of property tax.

My 2007 property tax notice for my boat showed where my boat was appraised at $7556. The tax notice I received last Summer for 2008 showed that my boat was appraised for $9860. I could not understand how my boat could have increased in value though it was one year older.

I called the Tax Assessor's office and tried unsuccessfully to have them re-check their data and figures. If you have ever tried dealing with any tax office in the past, you know how difficult this can be. So, I filed for review, which was the next step.

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The Tax Assessor's office responded, saying they reviewed the matter and were standing by their new appraisal. So, I took the next step... I filed for a hearing.   

When I filed for the hearing, I also sent a letter requesting discovery, since I was within my right to find out how they came up with the figures for the appraisal.       They did not respond, accordingly. So I waited.

I finally received the Hearing Notice during the second week in January, 2008.

The hearing would be held Feb. 11-13th and the Hearing Board requested confirmation of receipt of the Notice and the scheduling of an appointment for the hearing.

I called and scheduled the appointment for February 11th, and then followed up with a formal Petition and Motion for Discovery, copying the Tax Assessor with the two documents filed.      

The Tax Assessor, apparently noticing in my Motion for Discovery that I would have automatic basis for appeal since they had not complied with my earlier discovery request, finally sent me discovery. Now I was able to plan my strategy.

At the Hearing, there was a 3-member Board of Equalization (the Administrative Law Judges for the Hearing Board) and the Tax Assessor and assistant present in a conference-style room.

The head of the Board instructed both parties regarding the rules of procedure, and then asked if I wished to present my case first or if I wished for the Tax Assessor to present her case. I allowed the Tax Assessor to go first. 

When the tax Assessor had finished her presentation, the Board asked if I wished to present my case, and I stated that my case was based on documents and questions to the Tax Assessor. They told me to proceed.

I first presented the copies of the Tax Assessor's own documents I had received in discovery, offering a copy first to the Board and then one to the Assessor.

Each time, I asked if these were documents she recognized as their documents.

Each time, I also asked her to read the year, make, and model of the boat and the outboard motor in their documents. Each time, she read, 2000 Godfrey Sweetwater SW 2221 FX XC as the boat and 2000 Johnson 40JPL Jet as the outboard motor as stated in their documents.

I then began phase 2. I began giving the Board and the Assessor the titles, insurance papers, and registration papers, asking the Assessor if she had any reason to believe that these documents were unofficial, incorrect, or tampered with. She said "no" each time. I then asked her to read, from each of these documents the year, make, and model of the boat and motor.

My documents stated I had a 2000 Godfrey Sweetwater 2221 SC boat and a 2000 Johnson 40PLS outboard. One of the Board members caught it right away and said, "hey, these are two distinct boats and motors!"

I asked the Board members to bear with me, since there was even more to come.

They agreed. In the meantime, the Assessor's assistant was frantically rifling through their valuation book. I looked at her and said, "I'm sorry, you won't find a 2221 SC in that book at all, since ABOS doesn't list that boat.

Then came phase 3. I began passing out the next set of documents... a valuation by N.A.D.A. (knowing the Assessor would probably object, I pre-empted her objection by saying that I was aware that they switched over from N.A.D.A. to ABOS, but I just wanted see if N.A.D.A. did have a 2221 SC and a Johnson 40 PLS listed, and they did.

Then I asked everyone to note their valuation as being a total of $6720. Then I passed out the valuation of the same boat and motor as made by the marina, and another valuation as made by a Godfrey dealer. Both these documents valued the boat and motor at approximately $6800.    

I then handed them another document, a print-out of the ABOS valuation, valuing a 2221 Elite, with 90 hp Johnson, at $5500, and I said, "In contacting the manufacturer of my boat, I asked which would be a closer type of boat and they said the Elite would definitely be much closer in valuation to the SC. And then I asked why they would say the Elite was closer to the SC."

That was when phase 4 came about. I passed the Assessor and the Board, each, a copy of a letter sent to me by the manufacturer, stating that Godfrey has never manufactured any boat model 2221 FX XC.

I then passed around some photos to the board, which clearly showed my boat as a 2221 SC, and clearly showed that my Johnson 40 outboard was a propeller outboard and not a jet drive.

"In closing, I realize that ya'll will most likely deny it, but I have to ask for it here in case I take this matter to Superior Court before a Jury, so I can ask for it there, so I now pray that this Board will grant me injunctive relief." They denied injunctive relief, as I figured, but they also knew I was willing to take it to the next level, which would then risk the County having to pay more money.     

"In order to compromise," said the head of the Board, "would you be okay if we all agreed to valuation of your boat and motor at $7,000 even?" I agreed. 

The Board also wrote an order for all property taxes paid for this year for the boat and motor to be refunded to me, in full.

In complying with good sportsmanship etiquette, I shook hands with the Assessor and her assistant, and then with the Board members. One of the Board members asked what I did. "I am a professor of law, specializing in teaching Administrative Law at British-American University School of Law, and I have an Administrative Law practice," I replied.

"No wonder," he said. "I have been doing this for a good many years now, and I have never seen anyone come in here so well prepared and handle himself as well as you just did." I smiled, thanked him for the kind words, and left. 

The IRAC Approach to Exam Questions
 

By Chuck Milam

IRAC (Issue, Rules, Analysis, Conclusion) functions as a methodology for legal analysis. Here is a great IRAC Example:

Person A walks into a grocery store and picks up a loaf of bread. He then stuffs the bread beneath his jacket. A security attendant sees him and follows him to the cash register. Person A passes through without stopping to pay for anything.

The security attendant stops him at the gate. He detains person A while he interrogates him. Person A is unresponsive and uncooperative and in fact downright hostile to the charges being leveled at him by the security attendant. Person A is held for a period of two hours at the end of which it is found that he had actually put the loaf of bread back and was not stealing. Person A sues the grocery store for false imprisonment. Would person A prevail in court?

Issue

The issue here is if person A could prevail in court by alleging that he was falsely imprisoned.



Rules

Most jurisdictions in the United States allow recovery for false imprisonment.         The courts look at two elements in determining whether a person has been falsely imprisoned, namely just cause and authority. In looking at the element of just cause, courts further analyze two factors: reasonable suspicion and the environment in which the actions take place.
 

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If a person suspects that he is being deprived of property legally attached to him and he can show that his suspicions are reasonable then he is said to have a reasonable suspicion. Courts also look at whether the activity in question took place in an environment where stealing is common. Crowded public places and shops are considered to be more justifiable places where a person could have just cause for reasonable suspicion in comparison to private property or sparsely populated areas.

In looking at the other element of authority, the courts tend to favor people directly charged with handling security as people with the authority to detain a person in comparison to private individuals. The courts have made exceptions in the favor of the person conducting the detention if he is a shopkeeper. This special privilege is called the shopkeeper's privilege. In general the element of authority is usually seen as one part of a two part legal justification for legally justifiable detention.

For example in cases involving detention by an officer of the law, courts have ruled that the officer has to have both just cause and authority. Authority in itself is not enough. The same reasoning applies to all detaining individuals. Exceptions are made in the case where a person of authority has to conduct an investigation with just cause and courts usually grant a reasonable amount of time in detention for this purpose. Here the reasonable amount of time a person can be kept in detention is directly related to the circumstances under which the detention takes place.


 

Analysis

Person A was conducting his activity in a crowded place that happened to be a grocery store. He was further detained by a security attendant. The security attendant had seen him pick up a loaf of bread and walk past the cash register without paying. The security attendant detained him until he discovered that no theft had taken place. Person A was subsequently released upon this determination of fact.

A court looking at these facts would try to apply the two elements of false imprisonment. The first element of false imprisonment is just cause.

The first factor of just cause is reasonable suspicion. The security attendant saw person A pick up a loaf of bread and stuff it beneath his jacket. This is an uncommon action as most grocery shop customers usually do not hide produce under their personal belongings. The security attendant, therefore, has reasonable suspicion because a reasonable person in his place would have also considered this action to be suspicious.

Person A further walks by the cash register without paying. The security attendant has already seen person A hiding the bread under his jacket and honestly believes that person A is still in possession of the loaf of bread. A reasonable person in the security attendant's stead would arguably act to stop person A. Thus, this seems to satisfy the first factor of the element of just cause, reasonable suspicion.

The second factor of the element of just cause is the environment. The activity takes place in a grocery store. A grocery store is usually a place where shoplifters and other thieves operate regularly. This reduces the burden of just cause placed on the person performing the detention. The security attendant has to be unusually vigilant and suspicious of a person's motive because of his location. This then seems to satisfy the second factor of the element of just cause, environment.

The second element of false imprisonment is authority. The person performing the detention of A is the security attendant of the grocery store. He is the person charged with securing the grocery store and its property. The security attendant sees person A put the loaf of bread underneath his coat and walk through the checkout without paying. The security attendant now has to act because he has been charged with the security of the store and he has just cause. The security attendant performs the investigation after he puts person A in detention and it takes two hours.

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Two hours might seem like an unreasonable amount of time but given the fact that person A was unresponsive and uncooperative it seems to be reasonable. It also seems as if the security attendant was doing his due diligence as he releases person A as soon as the facts are established and it is shown that person A was not stealing the loaf of bread.

Finally we have to look at the fact that since the activity took place in a grocery store, the shopkeeper's privilege applies directly to the security attendant in charge of securing the store and its property. This privilege gives the security attendant extra leeway in detaining people in whom he has reasonable suspicion. Most courts would lean heavily towards the shopkeeper because person A was on the property of the grocery store and thus could be subjected to extra scrutiny given the long history of the shopkeeper's privilege in common law.

 

Conclusion

Person A would most likely not prevail in the courts because the security attendant does not satisfy either element of false imprisonment. The detention of person A was legal because the security attendant had both just cause and authority.     

Additionally, the shopkeeper's privilege further solidifies the legality of the detention. Person A, therefore, has no recourse under the law.
 

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