The plaintiff sued the defendant under an age discrimination statute, alleging that the defendant refused to hire the plaintiff because she was over age 65. The defendant’s defense was that he refused to employ the plaintiff because he reasonably believed that she would be unable to perform the job. The defendant seeks to testify that plaintiff’s former employer advised him not to hire the plaintiff because she was unable to perform productively for more than four hours a day.
The testimony of the defendant is:
A. Inadmissible, because the defendant’s opinion of the plaintiff’s abilities is not based on personal knowledge.
B. Inadmissible, because the former employer’s statement is hearsay not within any exception.
C. Admissible as evidence that the plaintiff would be unable to work longer than four hours per day.
D. Admissible as evidence of the defendant’s reason for refusing to hire the plaintiff.
Please share your answer along with your justification for choosing that answer. Good luck!
As Sean mentioned yesterday, today marks our first “MBE Question of the Day” post. We will give you all an opportunity to ponder the question and offer your (inevitably brilliant) thoughts and (undoubtedly correct) answers throughout the day; the answer and answer explanations will be posted tomorrow morning as we post tomorrow’s question. So, without further ado, here’s the first question:
The defendant is walking in front of a liquor store when a thief, who has just robbed the store at gunpoint, orders him to drive the getaway car parked at the curb. As the defendant and the thief are approaching a red light at a busy intersection where pedestrians are crossing the street, the brakes fail. To avoid hitting the pedestrians, the man swings his car across the sidewalk and into a house. The car strikes the homeowner, who is watching television in his living room, killing him.
If the defendant is charged with manslaughter, his best defense is:
A. Defense of others—the pedestrians on the crosswalk.
B. Self-defense.
C. Duress.
D. Necessity.
Please share your answer along with your justification for choosing that answer. Good luck!
Exciting news here at Bar Exam Brief. Beginning tomorrow morning, we’re kicking off a new recurring feature here on the blog. We’ll be running this feature every day during bar exam study season. Each morning we will post an MBE question along with the possible answers. It is our hope that during the day you will come on over, check out the question, post your proposed answer, along with a comment or two to support your answer. At the end of the say, we’ll post our official MicroMash answer, as well as our explanation. We will use questions from adaptive MBE software, so these are some of the same questions you’ll eventually see if you are studying for the bar with us.
We have two motivations for doing this.
First, we believe this has strong potential to turn into a nice little community of bar exam takers twice a year. Hopefully, you’ll learn a thing or two that will help you come exam time. Justifying your selection with a sentence or two may help you better grasp the underlying issues of these questions. Who knows how this might develop. You may even meet a few virtual study buddies here.
Second, creating this community helps us give a human voice to MicroMash, which is one of the things we have been striving hard towards for the past several months. Both Maryann Herman and I will be involved in the community, posting questions and answers, and interacting with you in the comments. Maryann serves as MicroMash’s Editorial Director, while I am the Executive Director. We’re really looking forward to this project with open minds and high hopes. And who knows, it may help a few people that are on the fence about MicroMash become just a little more comfortable with us as a company — and thereby lead to higher enrollments.
So keep an eye out tomorrow morning. Stop by and say hello. And take a stab at answering the MBE Question of the Day.
