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5 Cases for the Skills Building Interview Assignment
These cases are altered from the ones in the 14th edition. The basic description and characters are
the same. Students become familiar with versions used over a number of semesters so it is wise
to alter them from time to time.
Case #1: Police Abuse
On July 21 at 5:30 a.m., Martin Luther Johnson was arrested by two Chicago police officers
while he was walking and playing with his dog in Lincoln Park. The officers placed him in their
patrol car, drove around the area for 15 minutes, and finally allowed him to call Lt. Sean Boston
at the Lincoln Park Police Station. He was released upon Lt. Boston’s insistence.
A hearing has been held, and officers April Summers and Mark Winters, the first a rookie
and the second with four years of experience, have been suspended without pay, Summers for 15
days and Winters for 30 days. Johnson considers this a travesty of justice and is pressing
criminal charges. He is charging Winters with assault and battery, false imprisonment, and
violation of his civil rights and Summers with being an accessory before the fact. He said he was
“roughed up,” threatened with bodily harm, and profiled because of his ethnicity.
Martin Luther Johnson said he was walking his Chocolate Lab Cinnamon through
Lincoln Park near his home and throwing a tennis ball to her. He walks his dog early in the
morning to avoid the early rush hour traffic and late afternoon crowds in the park. A Chicago
patrol car passed him going in the opposite direction, made a quick U-turn, pulled up behind
him, and followed him for about one hundred yards before its lights started flashing and siren
started wailing. He continued to walk his dog because he assumed there might be an emergency
in one of the large homes that surround the park.
Officer Winters got out of the patrol car, walked slowly toward him, pulled out his
service weapon, and yelled, “Stop where you are and get on the ground with your hands behind
your head!” The yelling and appearance of an angry patrolman frightened him and his dog. He
knelt down and started lowering himself to the ground while trying to attach a leash to his dog.
He tried to ask what was going on, but Winters grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed his
face into the gravel walk way. Officer Summers approached from the other side with a shotgun
aimed at his head. He again tried to ask why he was being arrested and asked Winters to stop
pushing his face into the walkway. Winters took out his club and threatened to hit him. When he
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30-35 years old, 5’ 8-10” tall, and slender build. The suspect wore blue jeans, a jacket, and a
Chicago Cubs cap. Johnson is 60 years old, African-American, 6’ 1” tall, and weighs around 215
pounds. At the time of his arrest, Johnson was wearing white jogging shorts, a dark blue shirt,
and a Chicago White Sox cap.
Lt. Sean Boston, commander of the Lincoln Park Station, said officers had been on the
lookout for a man who had been making unwanted advances toward females in the Lincoln Park
area. This man was never seen with a dog. Boston had known Johnson for several years and had
Case #2: A Case of Negligence
On the evening of September 24, a year ago, Jane and Walter Manly arrived at the Willard and
Virginia Packman home for a cookout. The Manlys and Packmans were neighbors and long-time
friends. After an hour of conversation, and a decanter of Irish Mist (a mixture of Irish Whiskey
and honey), Walter joined Willard in his workshop to look at a desk he was making for his
grandson. Jane joined Virginia on the deck. They placed four steaks on the grill, and Jane
volunteered to do the steaks while Virginia prepared several dishes in the kitchen. Jane was
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wearing a long-sleeve silk blouse, and when melting fat from the steaks flamed up, Jane’s blouse
caught fire and burned her hand, face, and hair. Virginia rushed outside when she heard Jane yell
in pain. She smothered the flames with a beach towel lying near their pool, but the burns
appeared to be severe. In spite of Virginia’s pleas and those of the husbands, who had rushed to
the deck after hearing yells, to take her to the emergency room immediately, Jane decided to go
home to treat herself. She fainted on the way home and broke her arm when she fell onto a wall
at the end of her driveway.
Walter Manly called 911, and a police officer and a team of EMTs arrived within a few
minutes. They placed Jane in the ambulance, and Virginia insisted on riding in the back with her.
After treatment for second- and third-degree burns, Jane was admitted to the hospital for further
treatment and observation. When Jane was released from the hospital, Virginia took meals to the
Manlys and visited frequently, often applying medications to Jane’s burns and replacing
bandages. She is a former trauma center nurse.
As the year has passed, relations between the Manlys and Packmans have deteriorated
and grown bitter. Jane’s burns have been slow to heal properly, and she has some ugly scars on
her arms and neck. The Manlys have filed a $450,000 negligence suit against the Packmans, and
the Packmans have filed a countersuit charging contributory negligence. An initial hearing has
been held, but no decision has been made.
Under state law, hosts are responsible for protecting their guests from accidents caused
by traps, alcoholic drinking, and dangerous defects known by the hosts and unlikely to be
detected by guests. Both parties, however, are expected to exercise reasonable caution and
moderation. If a guest is injured by reason of the host’s negligence, the guest has valid grounds
for a lawsuit. If a guest is guilty of contributory negligence, there are no grounds for a suit.
Jane Manly argues that she has valid grounds for claiming $450,000 in damages from the
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Case #3: Assault and Battery
Arthur and Lucille Nichols live at 2234 Albany Street with their four children, Nancy, Arthur,
Jr., Matthew, and Chelsea. Arthur is 40 years old, five feet six inches tall, and weighs 155
pounds. He is the finance manager for Old Hickory Furniture, but has a growing reputation as a
breeder of Siberian Huskies of dog show quality. He and his wife hope to get into dog breeding
full time by developing a reputation of breeding award winning Huskies at national and
international levels. They paid $5,000 to have Nanook (their blue-eyed, gray, pure-breed Huskie)
with a national champion Siberian Huskie named Thor and have been anxiously awaiting the
birth of 7-9 pure-breed puppies. The first phase of their dream seemed imminent.
William and Marcia Parry live at 2236 Albany Street with their children, Rocky and
Sandy. William is thirty-six years old, six feet five inches tall, and weighs over 250 pounds. The
Parry’s own a mix-breed black, white, and brown male dog named Trickster.
Arthur Nichols said he arrived home at about 6:00 p.m. from work to discover that
Nanook had just given birth to eight black, white, and brown puppies. He heard excited voices in
the Parry’s yard where the kids were teaching Trickster to jump higher than the fence that
separated their yards. Arthur said he just “lost it.” He grabbed a small branch, jumped the fence,
and started chasing Trickster around the yard intent on making him pay for what he had done.
Rocky and Sandy tried to stop him.
Marcia Parry said she looked out the kitchen window to see that “crazy” Arthur chasing
poor Rocky, Sandy, and Trickster around the yard and threatening them with a tree limb. He
swung the limb several times at her children and Trickster, but they were too quick for him. She
yelled to William, “That crazy Nichols is trying to kill our kids and Trickster.”
William Parry said he ran out the back door and tackled Arthur just as he was about to hit
Trickster whom he had cornered near the garage with what appeared to be a small tree. Nichols
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Case #4: Cheating in College
Professor Semantha Tilson teaches a course in creative writing at Brier University. This course is
required of all students pursuing a professional writing curriculum and is a popular elective for
many English and Theatre majors A capstone assignment due at the end of the semester requires
each student to write a biography of a historical figure they admire. She received a biography
from Giulo Giordano, an English education major, on Eugene V. Debs who ran for president five
times as the Socialist Party candidate. As she read through Giordano’s biography, it appeared to
be similar to one she had received a few years earlier.
When Professor Tilson looked through her files, she came across another biography on
Debs and the early socialist movement in the U.S. It was similar to Giordano’s and was written
by a history student named Joe Selzer. Both reports focused on Eugene V. Debs as a presidential
candidate, included statements from the director of Debs Home and Museum in Terre Haute,
Indiana, and cited the same biographies by Ray Ginger and Nick Salvatore. Six of eight
conclusions were nearly the same. Several sentences in the two biographies were “quite similar.”
After confronting Giordano with the two projects, Professor Tilson asked the Student
Court to determine whether Giordano was guilty of “fraud.” The University and Court define
fraud as “willfully and intentionally giving or receiving improper aid in examinations, papers,
and projects. The Court consists of nine students: two freshmen, two sophomores, two juniors,
two seniors, and one graduate student. The Dean of Students serves as an advisor on university
policies and regulations. Several people testified at a hearing two weeks ago.
Professor Semantha Tilson said she called Giordano into her office for a conference and
asked him about his biography of Eugene V. Debs. At first he appeared sullen and disinclined to
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talk but later became more communicative, even frank. Since he was interested in politics and
planned to go into politics after graduation, he decided it would be an interesting and relevant
topic. He said he had read several sources listed in his references and called the director of the
Debs Home and Museum. When asked if he had talked to Joe Seltzer, he said he had met him
during homecoming that fall but remembered discussing Debs only briefly over a few beers.
Giulo Giordano said he had spent a great deal of time on his project and resented the
implication that he could not come up with a good idea, conduct research, and write a good
biography on his own. He agreed with everything Professor Tilson said except the description of
him as being sullen and disinclined to talk. He said he was cautious at first because Tilson
seemed to have her mind made up that he had cheated. Yes, he had met the former student who
had submitted a similar paper a few years earlier, but he could not explain the alleged similarities
between the two reports except that they were on the same topic and used similar sources. After
Case #5: Award for a Hero
On October 9, 2014, a news report from Elizabeth, Tennessee reported, “Five Boy Scouts were
saved from drowning in Wildcat Creek yesterday by Rex Ingram, Scoutmaster of Troop 3344,
when a severe thunderstorm caused Wildcat Creek to rise well above flood stage. One boy
drowned.” Wildcat Creek drains a wide area and is three miles from Elizabeth. It is one of the
most popular streams in Tennessee for canoeing, fly fishing, and camping.
The Elizabeth meteorologist reported that on October 9, nearly 7 inches of rain fell
between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. The water on Wildcat Creek rose above flood stage to nearly 16 feet
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in a matter of four hours and quickly overwhelmed the narrow valley. This was the highest level
ever recorded for Wildcat Creek.
Rex Ingram was thirty-five years old at the time, a native of Elizabeth, a graduate of the
local high school, and a former football player at the University of Tennessee. He was an
industrial engineer at the Southern Textile and Carpet Works in Knoxville and loved the
outdoors. He had been scoutmaster for nearly three years, taking the boys on monthly outings
regardless of the weather.
Rex took his troop camping at Eagle Scout camp located in an area of the creek that is
normally 300 feet wide and two-feet deep for about a quarter of a mile. The camp is located on a
low, sparsely wooded island about 125 feet from each bank. A cabin for sleeping and eating
meals is about 15 feet high to the ridgepole. Three large oak trees are located fifteen feet from
the front door.
George Young was fourteen years old at the time of the tragedy, the oldest boy in the
Scout troop. He said there was a plank bridge between the island and the north bank of the creek.
The water there was normally about three feet deep. When it began to storm and rain heavily,
Rex took the boys into the cabin away from the tall trees to keep dry and cook dinner. At about
5:15, one of the Scouts reported that the center of the plank bridge was under water. They were
eating supper when water began to come into the cabin. Rex went outside and waded to a tree
onto which he tied a small skiff.
Grant King was eleven years old, the youngest boy in the troop. As water continued to
rise in the cabin, some of the younger boys became very frightened, so Rex placed the four
youngest boys into the skiff with George Young and rowed them to the north bank. Rex rowed
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Case #6: Dismissal of the Teacher
Marian Williams is thirty-one years old and has worked as a third grade teacher in the Oak Park
school district for eight years, receiving tenure two years ago. Since coming to Oak Park, she has
earned a master’s degree specializing in teaching children with special needs. Her master’s
degree satisfied a state requirement for a lifetime teaching license. Her state-mandated teaching
evaluations have been outstanding. She is active in the ACLU and the Unitarian Church of
Mapleton and lives on a farm at the edge of the county with a roommate named Martha Parks, a
teacher in neighboring Douglas County.
Following Christmas break, Marian’s principal barred her from entering the Oak Park
Elementary School building, saying that her services were no longer needed and her contract had
been cancelled by the school board. It seems that over Christmas vacation, the school board had
met in secret at the law offices of Charles Roberts, president of the board, and unanimously
passed a statute requiring all teachers to reside in Boone County, site of Marian’s school. Since
Marian lives in a house on the old Miller farm three miles from Oak Park and 10 yards over the
county line, she was dismissed and replaced immediately with Jackie Norway, a cousin of school
board member Noah Norway and active member of People for a Moral America. The Oak Park
Leader published an editorial applauding the new statute designed to bring the community, its
schools, and its teachers close together and to strengthen the community’s commitment to
“strong middle-America values.”
Marian Williams said she confronted the school board president, Charles Roberts, and
explained that since the majority of the Miller farm, except the house, was in Boone County, she
met the new requirement. He told her it was too late for appeals because her position had already
been filled and the board was obligated legally to honor this contract. Besides, the house in
which she actually lived was over the county line, so she technically lived outside of the county.
Marian asked why she had not been notified, and Roberts replied that they had tried to call her
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Case #7: Contesting a Will
William McCollum, a farmer in Smithfield, North Dakota, died from heat stroke while working
in his fields and is survived by six children and three grandchildren. McCollum’s estate, after all
debts and taxes have been paid, is valued at $2,000,000. According to the terms of his will, all
land, property, structures, livestock, and equipment are to be sold and the money placed into a
trust fund. Each of his children and grandchildren will receive one seventh of the interest each
year until his last child dies. At that time, the principal of the trust fund will be divided equally
among the surviving grandchildren.
William McCollum’s six children are anxious to secure immediate control of their shares of
the estate and are asking the courts to set aside the will on three grounds: “mental incapacity,”
“cruelty,” and “senility.” They propose that all of the estate be divided into seven equal parts. Six
parts would go to the six surviving children (Lincoln, Ada, Henry, Mary, June, and Edward) who
are between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-five, with June being the youngest. The
grandchildren who range in age from three to seven would share one part. All six of the children
were estranged from their father when he died, and five lived in other towns.
Rev. Emerson DeWitt, a retired minister from the First Methodist Church, said he had
known William McCollum all of his life and found him to be grasping, miserly, profane, and
irreligious. When he conducted the marriage of Alice McCollum to Mark Davis, William refused
to attend the ceremony because he opposed the marriage. When he met William on the street the
next day, he cursed him. When Alice died a year ago, William attended the funeral but sat alone
in the back pew. Rev. DeWitt tried to comfort him, but William replied, “She’s in hell now.”
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Case #8: Lawsuit against a Restaurant
The Johannesen Restaurant is located in Minneapolis and has a seating capacity of 250. It
specializes in Scandinavian dishes, particularly fresh seafood. Friday evening is always a busy
and hectic time for the restaurant. As a result of an incident on the evening of September 21,
Jessie Gustavson is suing the restaurant for $25,000 damages on the grounds of false
imprisonment and mental anguish. False imprisonment is defined as “improper, unwarranted,
and unjustified detainment without cause.”
Jessie Gustavson said she and her aunt Thora Ulf entered the Johannesen Restaurant about
5:50 p.m. for dinner and had 7:30 tickets to see the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra perform
Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor and Symphony in E Minor. They had been looking
forward to this evening for many months. Thora Ulf had grown up in Bergen, Norway, Grieg’s
home town, where he composed both pieces.
Jessie and Thora had reservations for 6:00 o’clock and believed they had adequate time to
get served and walk the four blocks to the Symphony Hall. Unfortunately, they had to wait
twenty-five minutes for their table even though they had been told it would be five minutes.
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After taking their drink orders, their waiter disappeared for over fifteen minutes before returning
with their drinks and to take their orders. They both ordered the salmon special because they
thought it would take less time, and they told their waiter about their time constraints. Their
salads came thirteen minutes later, and they told their waiter to cancel their dinners because they
now had too little time to eat it. He nodded but returned fifteen minutes later with their salmon
dinners just as they were preparing to leave.
Thora Ulf stated they did not touch their dinners and left for the cashier. When they got to
the cashier, they told her what had happened and that they needed to leave immediately for
Symphony Hall. They paid for their drinks and salads and were about to leave the restaurant
Case #9: Murder or Self-Defense
On the morning of February 9, 1963, Lucinda Harvey called the sheriff to her home outside of
Westfield, Alabama. When the sheriff got there, he found Jacob Harvey dead in the front yard
near a mailbox. Lucinda Harvey was not at home, and her whereabouts could not be determined
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at the time of the coroner’s inquest two days later. Since there were no witnesses, the coroner
issued an open verdict, meaning that the case could be reopened when more information became
available.
The case was reopened one month later at the insistence of the NAACP. Lucinda Harvey,
who had returned to Westfield, was taken to the Alabama Sheet Steel Fabrication plant where her
husband had worked for nine years. She identified three men as the ones who had shot her
husband. These men, all co-workers with Jacob, admitted that they had gone to the Harvey home
the night before the shooting and, at first, claimed they had left the home and not seen or talked
to Jacob after that. They did not know he was dead until they heard reports on the radio.
Jacob Harvey, a thirty-eight-year-old African-American Marine veteran, six feet two inches
tall, 245 pounds, and very strong, was a life-long resident of Westfield. He was a skilled
mechanic at Alabama Sheet Steel Fabrication with a good work record. Some co-workers said he
was a workplace bully. Harvey had been very active in the local chapter of the NAACP since
returning home from the Korean War as a decorated Marine Corps sergeant.
Lucinda Harvey testified that on the evening of February 8, she and Jacob had gone to bed
around 9:30 p.m. and were awakened about an hour later by loud knocks and curses. She got out
of bed and opened the front door. Three men brushed her aside and went into the bedroom. She
heard loud arguing and shouting but could not tell what was being said. Jacob ordered them to
leave his home and said he had a gun. The men left with one saying that this was not the end of
the matter. Then she heard a car drive away.
Early the next morning, February 9, Jacob went out near the road to place some letters in
the mailbox. She heard gunshots and then a car driving away at a high rate of speed. When Jacob
did not come back into the house, she called the sheriff and left immediately with her three
children for Montgomery where she had stayed with an aunt to escape “the horrors of the
situation.” She assumed the worst with the racial tensions being so extreme in the south at that
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Case #10: A Wild Police Chase
On April 3 at 3:35 p.m., two young, white males wearing masks robbed the Kerr Fur Boutique
located in Manhattan of $37,539 in cash and over $278,000 in furs. They shot and killed the
manager, Marty Simon, when he attempted to trip an alarm, and guard Deacon Jones when he
pulled out his gun. They fled in a dark brown Chevy Suburban. A short time later they switched
to a Yellow taxi driven by Herbert Hausman and led the police on a twenty-five-minute chase
through Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. When the chase ended, the bandits had
covered more than fifteen miles in heavy traffic, four people were dead, and six people were
wounded. Patrolman Dempsey shot Hausman at the end of the chase and is now being charged
with manslaughter.
Patrolman Megan Walker, said she and Patrolman Dempsey had responded to a call that
a Chevy Suburban carrying the robbers of the Kerr Fur Boutique was heading east on 169th
Street in Manhattan. When they reached 169th, they saw motorcycle officer Winston Churchill
lying critically wounded in the street. They called for an emergency vehicle and continued along
169th. Several blocks later they saw a brown Chevy Suburban parked in an alley. When they
checked it out, they discovered that it was the robbery vehicle because furs and masks were
inside.
Detective Jack Kiley said he and her partner Drew Nimitz were at the 161st Street station
when Walker and Dempsey reported that the robbers had abandoned their Suburban and were in
a yellow taxi apparently heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge. A short time later they joined the
chase and quickly encountered two wounded officers in a patrol car who warned than that the
bandits were firing AK-47’s out the back window. After crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, they
spotted the taxi with several patrol cars in hot pursuit. They turned east, went down Dychman
Street to Sherman Avenue, down Sherman Avenue to Nagel Street and then around the block
again. There was “intermittent” firing from the taxi.
Detective Drew Nimitz said a Fed Ex truck blocked Nagel Street and the Yellow Taxi
came to a stop on the sidewalk. Police cars barricaded the street on both ends and a standoff
ensued with gunfire coming from inside the taxi and under the beer truck. After a ten-minute
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Cases 3 and 6 are based partially on ones developed by Robert E. Smith, and cases 2, 4, 5, 7, 8,
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