FE1 Exam Thread (Read 1st post!) NOTICE: YOU MAY SWAP EXAM GRIDS

Redo91

So for Tort I currently have notes done on the following:

Negligence
Professional Negligence
Product Liability
Miscellaneous Liability
Economic Loss
Vicarious Liability
Occupiers Liability
Rylands v Fletcher
Nuisance
Nervous Shock
Trespass

Due to time constraints I am going to leave out Defamation. I studied it in both Tort and Media Law as an undergrad but it's one of the broader topics on the course so I think I will have to leave it out. I'm only doing Tort this sitting but I only have 2-3 days off work a week so I really need to get revising soon.

Of the topics I'm leaving out I'm most concerned about leaving out defamation, employers' liability, defences and remedies. For those of you that have sat Tort before is there much mixing of topics or is it generally one topic per question? Will I be ok to leave out those 4 topics that I mentioned and have I enough covered with what I currently have notes typed up on?

Thanks in advance for any help.

omgnaire

Hi guys,

would anyone be able to tell me what four cases came up for the short note question in Constitutional last October? Many thanks in advance if so.

Arcturus2112

omgnaire wrote: »

Hi guys,

would anyone be able to tell me what four cases came up for the short note question in Constitutional last October? Many thanks in advance if so.

Fleming v Ireland [2013]

Maher v Minister for Agriculture [2001]

Murphy v Attorney General [1982]

TD v Minister for Education [2001]

Bayley1

I have no interest whatsoever in studying. I'm sitting at my desk over an hour now..trying to learn off stuff. I couldn't even tell you what ive read.

XxMCRxBabyxX

Bayley1 wrote: »

I have no interest whatsoever in studying. I'm sitting at my desk over an hour now..trying to learn off stuff. I couldn't even tell you what ive read.

I'm in a selective study mode these days. Pick a topic I like, read that, write a few notes. Sure that's me studied for the day now. Disaster.

LawCQ91

Bayley1 wrote: »

I have no interest whatsoever in studying. I'm sitting at my desk over an hour now..trying to learn off stuff. I couldn't even tell you what ive read.

I took most of yesterday off and Slept in today.. I actually don't know what's wrong with me

TinkledPink

LawCQ91 wrote: »

I took most of yesterday off and Slept in today.. I actually don't know what's wrong with me

I'm fed up too

Bayley1

TinkledPink wrote: »

I'm fed up too

I've stsrted to rewrite my notes...I feel like I'm doing something

Bayley1

Ok meltdown over - I just did up a revised study plan. Thought I'd less time left (I know I'm crazy) after a little organising I feel a little better

Off to walk the dogs now :-D

LawCQ91

Redo91 wrote: »

So for Tort I currently have notes done on the following:

Negligence
Professional Negligence
Product Liability
Miscellaneous Liability
Economic Loss
Vicarious Liability
Occupiers Liability
Rylands v Fletcher
Nuisance
Nervous Shock
Trespass

Due to time constraints I am going to leave out Defamation. I studied it in both Tort and Media Law as an undergrad but it's one of the broader topics on the course so I think I will have to leave it out. I'm only doing Tort this sitting but I only have 2-3 days off work a week so I really need to get revising soon.


Of the topics I'm leaving out I'm most concerned about leaving out defamation, employers' liability, defences and remedies. For those of you that have sat Tort before is there much mixing of topics or is it generally one topic per question? Will I be ok to leave out those 4 topics that I mentioned and have I enough covered with what I currently have notes typed up on?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I actually can't remember much of Tort, but from what I can remember there can be mix of topics on problem questions but the topics you have done would have well covered such mix. You have all the important topics covered, would be very unlucky not to have 5Qs from that !

I left out defamation, employers, professional negligence when I sat it .. As in I couldn't tell you one case from above those topics. I only had a very basic knowledge of defence/remedies/limitations, I think you should just read the nutshell on those if you are worried.

In my opinion, I think there is very little point of covering defamation at this stage, you better off spend your time learning the notes tbh. If it comes up it should be its own Q as I was told on here ( I asked similar question on this on boards when I did tort ) anyway..It didn't come up on the last sitting so I am glad I didn't waste my time on defamation.

I actually made balls of one question in tort, you can actually see how upset I was if you trace back my posts on here. Read a question wrong and answered it the wrong topic altogether!! I passed it at 50 on the dot with like 4 questions.. I think the examiner might have gave me 2-3-% on the question I did wrong, so in my humble opinion
I think the examiner saw I had good knowledge of the course overall and passed me lol .

Hope it helps

j80ezgvc3p92xu

So any idea what topics to focus on for Criminal?

dashdoll

Does anyone have any thoughts on Equity, injunctions in particular? I think Im only going to cover Mareva inj as I just dont have enough time.

Im also covering the following topics and hoping Il have enough:

Specific Performance
Rectification
Estoppel
Recission
3 certainties
Trusteeship
Tracing
A little bit on Strong v Bird and Donatio Mortis Causa.

Any thoughts on this?

add727

Would anyone have an exam grid for EU that tells you what Q each topic is? I have one, but it just denotes with an x that the topic came up and I'm none the wiser as to which Q on the paper it is. The questions are so dense, I'm really struggling to identify exactly what is what!

Bayley1

dashdoll wrote: »

Does anyone have any thoughts on Equity, injunctions in particular? I think Im only going to cover Mareva inj as I just dont have enough time.

Im also covering the following topics and hoping Il have enough:

Specific Performance
Rectification
Estoppel
Recission
3 certainties
Trusteeship
Tracing
A little bit on Strong v Bird and Donatio Mortis Causa.

Any thoughts on this?

I'm doing the same except ive left out Tracing and have charitable/non charitable trust in there instead.
I've SP and undue influence covered in contract and estoppel and Donatio Mortis Causa in property so if I get stuck hopefully I'll be able to write something on some of those

MissM89

Hi All - I have a constitutional question that is wrecking my head, hopefully someone can explain!!

Q2 of March 2014 in relation to Grainne and the social welfare payment:-

1. In relation to socio-economic rights, where the right she is seeking to enforce is a legislative right - how do you bring socio economic rights into this?
2. I have a sample answer on this question which says that the bulk of the answer is about equality, but I don't know how equality is even relevant here where there is no-one else who did receive the payment where Grainne did not.

Im so confused, any help would be much appreciated!

LawCQ91

MissM89 wrote: »

Hi All - I have a constitutional question that is wrecking my head, hopefully someone can explain!!

Q2 of March 2014 in relation to Grainne and the social welfare payment:-

1. In relation to socio-economic rights, where the right she is seeking to enforce is a legislative right - how do you bring socio economic rights into this?
2. I have a sample answer on this question which says that the bulk of the answer is about equality, but I don't know how equality is even relevant here where there is no-one else who did receive the payment where Grainne did not.

Im so confused, any help would be much appreciated!

Hi, he social welfare payment would be up to the government to decide, court generally have no jurisdiction on those issues,I guess it is kind of like Sinotts and TD case in the sense the court are not willing to get involved. So the social welfare payment is a legislative right, not a constitutional right, if that makes sense?

I don't see equality on it either..

sunshine and showers

See, to me that's not really a question on Article 45 and socio-economic rights at all.

It's about deference and the separation of powers, sure. But it also looks like a sneaky admin question on fair procedures. Grainne has the right to have reasons given to her for the refusal of her application, per International Fishing Vessels v Minister for the Marine [1989] IR 149.

‘It is common case that the Minister’s decision is reviewable by the Court. Accordingly, the applicant has a right to have it reviewed. But in refusing to give his reasons for his decision the Minister places an obstacle in the way of the exercise of that right.’

He must mention the fact that "the letter tells you everything you need to know" for a reason.... Or am I totally over thinking this?

LawCQ91

sunshine and showers wrote: »

See, to me that's not really a question on Article 45 and socio-economic rights at all.

It's about deference and the separation of powers, sure. But it also looks like a sneaky admin question on fair procedures. Grainne has the right to have reasons given to her for the refusal of her application, per International Fishing Vessels v Minister for the Marine [1989] IR 149.


He must mention the fact that "the letter tells you everything you need to know" for a reason.... Or am I totally over thinking this?

I agree it's a fair procedure Q it's not really about SOP at all, suppose no harm to mention it though. I would have answered it under fair procedure

sunshine and showers

LawCQ91 wrote: »

I agree it's a fair procedure Q it's not really about SOP at all, suppose no harm to mention it though. I would have answered it under fair procedure

I just mentioned SOP as you were talking about legislative rights and the unwillingness of the courts to get involved in things the Oireachtas are in charge of. I'd only mention a line on it. Clearly a full fair procedures question. Carolan loves it, do not leave it out anyone!

To answer the original question, I don't know where the equality stuff comes in. This is Article 40.3 stuff, not 40.1.

MissM89

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I think I might actually be going mad - Constitutional is just so hard and the questions are so hard to decipher! I always feel like there has to be more than 1 issue at play so I go looking for stuff that may not actually be there! How is everyone else finding it?

dashdoll

Does anyone have any helpful tips on how to make the best use of the Companies Act for the exam?

Im repeating and I feel like I wasnt using it properly the last time.

I have tabbed by color coding such as different colours for directors, liquidators etc but if anyone has any better ideas or top sections to tab it would be great.

Thanks.

TinkledPink

MissM89 wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I think I might actually be going mad - Constitutional is just so hard and the questions are so hard to decipher! I always feel like there has to be more than 1 issue at play so I go looking for stuff that may not actually be there! How is everyone else finding it?

Here's my take on that March 2014 Q2 - You all discussed whether the question was about
(i) Socio-economic rights (SERs) and whether the right could be enforced,
(ii) equality,
(iii) deference/non-justiciability
(v) Article 45,
(vi) SOP or
(vii) fair procedures i.e. duty to give reasons under 40.3.

This is just my take on it - so feel free to hack away at it and tell me I'm wrong.
It's a tricky question because it's basically an Admin question as Sunshine stated and also because it's asking for "any ground" on which Gráinne can rely on to challenge the refusal which makes it quite broad. I take any ground to mean either issuing JR proceedings or relying on some right which has been violated. Obviously Gráinne doesn't want to JR the actual Act itself because she's looking to benefit from it and secure a support payment. But JR is not limited to Acts. Rather, she wants to JR the Minister's decision to refuse her the payment, essentially JR the Minister's exercise of his discretion.

A key to this question imo was to note that it's a social welfare payment and that the Act itself confers absolute discretion to the Minister as to who can benefit under the Act. The sheer fact that the Minister has absolute discretion has nothing to do with offending the SoP. The legislature is not precluded from conferring full discretion on the Minister. The non-delegation doctrine is about giving a subordinate body or Minister the power to make law. Here, the Minister isn't looking to make law that will be applicable to everyone. He is merely implementing a discretionary scheme. Deference is relevant to some extent in that the court won't interfere too readily with the legislature on matters of social policy or welfare.

Another key point to this question with Gráinne is to recognise that the "Social Welfare Act 2014" as it is called is nothing more than an administrative discretionary scheme. For this reason, the question can't really be about SER's because the Act creates no right that can be enforced. There is no right to a payment. It's about a discretionary payment to widows to support their children's education. The only relevance of SERs here is that the object of the payment is to support the child's (SER) i.e. education under 42 but again this doesn't take away from the fact that it's a discretionary payment, not a right. As the exam report says, the expenditure of public money does not always automatically mean SER and so people shouldn't automatically go into TD & Sinnott. The expenditure of public money as to a right was irrelevant here as to SERs because although the Act has the idea of supporting education, it was ultimately discretionary conferring no actual right. Any entitlement Gráinne has here comes from the statute, not from the Constitution.

Gráinne gets a letter saying she was not entitled to any benefit and yet no reasons are given. She should be JR'ing the Minister's decision to refuse her on the basis that she wasn't afforded fair procedures under 40.3. The question is whether the Minister had a duty to furnish her with reasons for denying her the support payment. The case law for this is Rajah, Abuissa, International Fishing Vessels, Meadows and Mallak among others. Meadows and Mallak basically say that where a Minister has full discretion re legislation, he still has to provide reasons for the decision that he came to. The question here is whether the Minister discharged that duty to give reasons. It wouldn't appear so as he didn't give Gráinne any. The whole reason you JR something is because you are questioning the decision making process and how can you question a process when you haven't been told how the d/m process was carried out. "Reasons" are the reason you JR. What did the Minster consider in this exercise of his absolute discretion and did he disclose the duty under 40.3 in the interests of natural justice and fair procedures? Again, anyone who knows about Admin law could have a field day here with the applicable tests and so on.

As for Equality, I don't see an argument here because where's the discrimination? It's a discretionary social welfare scheme. Unless it could be shown perhaps that the Minister's discretion was based on some objective criteria that perhaps fly in the face of reasonableness and discriminated against Gráinne unjustly. One interesting point perhaps though is that because the aim of the Act is to protect the children's education rights under 42 it could perhaps place a greater burden on the Minister to discharge his duty but I don't know any case law to support this. Another thing I don't know is whether Gráinne would be entitled to reply to the negative response and make her case or whether fair procedures just means the Minister had to give decisions. i.e. does anyone know how far fair procedures might extend for her.

A final point worth noting is that the facts of Q2 are quite similar to MhicMhatuna v Ireland where the applicant challenged legislation that provided an allowance for unmarried mothers claiming it was an inducement not to marry. Carroll J rejected this as the Oireachts was entitled to create such a scheme so as to help people in that situation and which was child oriented blah blah blah noble aim etc. She held there was no inducement not to marry as anyone benefiting would have to pass a means test. So perhaps in denying Gráinne, the Minister would have to say on some objective grounds why he denied her á la some test or standard. SC on appeal noted the deferential approach to social welfare legislation. Finally on Art 45, I don't think it's relevant. At most, it could be used by the Oireachtas as an interpretative aid in their decision to create socially progressive legislation and the courts could have regard to it in their decision.

So in my opinion, it's not SoP, it's not really SERs and its not really equally. All fair procedures which is tough. Anyone think I'm right or wrong here or missing a big point?

Legalseagull

Hi Folks! Could anyone tell me what came up in the last company paper and if there are any predictions floating around? Thanks!

MissM89

Tinkled Pink - thank you for you very detailed answer, which to be honest makes total sense! I see that the main issue is the Right to be given reasons, but I thought that there must be some other issue at play also. However, when you look at the alternative issues none of the quiet fit. I think with this Examiner I am just not expecting a nice straightforward question on the right to give reasons and I am constantly looking for something else in a question, where there may not be anything to look for. Going by the complexity of some of his questions, together with his exam reports I fear this examiner more than any of the others!!

maya_bb

Hi Guys,

Off topic but wasn't sure where to post. I have a TC with Arthur Cox starting May 2015 and I was just wondering if anyone knows whether I might be able to defer this until September 2015 or do they just have one intake a year, i.e. May?

Thanks.

prettylamp

maya_bb wrote: »

Hi Guys,

Off topic but wasn't sure where to post. I have a TC with Arthur Cox starting May 2015 and I was just wondering if anyone knows whether I might be able to defer this until September 2015 or do they just have one intake a year, i.e. May?

Thanks.

They only have the option to start in May I am afraid. They like you to have a few months in-office experience before you start in Blackhall.

maya_bb

Thanks Prettylamp, that's what I was afraid of! Good to know.

TinkledPink

MissM89 wrote: »

Tinkled Pink - thank you for you very detailed answer, which to be honest makes total sense! I see that the main issue is the Right to be given reasons, but I thought that there must be some other issue at play also. However, when you look at the alternative issues none of the quiet fit. I think with this Examiner I am just not expecting a nice straightforward question on the right to give reasons and I am constantly looking for something else in a question, where there may not be anything to look for. Going by the complexity of some of his questions, together with his exam reports I fear this examiner more than any of the others!!

Thank you. I'm the same in that I find it hard to deal with the factual situations in many of the Constitutional problems questions. When I read them, half the time I'm like "Huh...wha?" It does seem like there is bit of scope with them which scares me to be honest but I think so long as you hit the main points of the question you'll be fine. For that question, he said in the reports that a lot of people missed the main point altogether so I'd imagine a decent stab at fair procedures and a bit of discussion would've been grand. I'm just trying to make sure I have case names and basic principles learned by the time I get in there.

sunshine and showers

Confused by Independent property manual. Are the rule in Wheeldon v Burrows and s6 of the Conveyancing Act 1881 abolished or still in force?

It talks about them like they're still in force, but De Londras is talking about their replacements. She doesn't have the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 in this edition, though.

Lawstudent007

So, finally starting to memorise. My topics for constitutional are:

Effects of unconstitutionality
Principles of Judicial review
Principles of fundamental rights and JR
Personal rights
Family & Education
Equality
Separation of Powers
Property Rights
Trial in due course of law
Freedom of Speech

What do you all think. Am I covered?