Updated+Questionnaire+20.02.2014

1) Housing

John, Jane, Steve and Bill, together with their families – unable to afford housing – inhabit homes in a development project, suspended as a result of a delay in the authorization of permits, undertaken by a private corporation under a public contract. The four friends and their families move in adding improvements to the development, making the houses habitable. After a couple of months, the private corporation then discovers the four families and attempts to evict them. The families refuse to leave and decide to seek the assistance of a lawyer. The four friends sue :

2) Food

The same four friends as in question 1, together with their families, also start a communal garden on a vacant plot of land as they cannot afford to buy healthy food. Soon, the initial group is joined by other neighbors contributing to the garden. Max, owner of the plot of land, discover the four families and attempts not only to evict them but also to claim ownership over the food grown by the families on his land. John, Jane, Steve and Bill sue

3) Water: Rural

Bob, Steve and Jane are three villagers who depend on the water of Flumia, a nearby river. The three friends, together with other villagers in the area build acqueducts and an irrigation canal from the river to their respective homes and fields. After a few years, a private corporation acquire the right to manage the distribution of public water in the region, including the water of the Flumia river. The corporation is now demanding a fee for the water used by Bob, Steve, Jane and the other farmers. Bob, Steve and Jane sue.

4) Water 2: Urban Bob, Steve and Jane are three friends that inhabit a community housing building in a city, Flumiapolis. As a result of a large increase in the price of water (200% over 2 years) the three friends are unable to pay their water bills and after failing to pay the third bill, water to their building was cut off by the private/public partnered water company. Bob, Steve, and Jane sue.

5) Nature

Steve, Jane and their two children use to spend many weekends walking and playing in one of the few green areas at the outskirts of the city where they live. The land encompasses a wide wooden area and a small lake. The land belongs to a private owner who lives in a small house near the lake. The landowner decides to enclose the land with a fence in order to keep the area pristine and free from noisy picnicking families. Steve and Jane sue.

Variation 1) Assume that Steve and Jane discover a rare species of frog on the land: how does this support/undermine their claim? The claim of the landowner?

Variation 2) Assume that the landowner rather than simply fencing the land to protect it from wanderers would like to enclose the land for a commercial purpose: how would this alter the rights/entitlements of both parties?

6) Education/Knowledge

Laura is an engineering student at a public university. During the fall semester she has been designing a new type of hydraulic pump together with twenty other students as part of a course. The students communicate with each other through an online system owned by the university. The drawings are also kept on university servers. At the end of the semester the university announces that the tuition fee is being raised. Laura cannot afford to keep being enrolled. Laura is therefore removed from the data system of the university. Laura, however, expresses her desire to continue working on the project and sharing ideas with the other students as well to continue receiving credits for her work towards her degree. The university denies her request and she sues. Furthermore, Laura has decided to post the hydraulic pump project online as an open engineering project to which fellow engineers can contribute online. The university discovers the open pump project and sues Laura. Laura files a counter suit.

7)Care: Health, Legal, Children & Elderly

Laura, together with other people from the neighborhood, have organized a non-profit day center in an abandoned building after the closing of a nearby day care center and elderly center as result of massive state budget cuts. The center is staffed by volunteers who take care of children and elderly people when their parents and relatives are at work, thus reducing the strain on the already tight budget of the many families living in the area. Soon after, Steve, a doctor in cooperation with Laura sets up a medical clinic in the same building offering free services to irregular migrants that have no health insurance. Jane, a lawyer, hearing about the clinic also joins the group by offering free legal services for irregular migrants that would otherwise not have access to legal advice. Daniel, the owner of the building, would like to evict the users of the day center in order to sell the building that he has recently inherited by his uncle John. Many people in the area are upset by the news and Laura, Steve and Jane decide to sue.

These facts are added to make it more realistic that it is not totally unreasonable for the parties to have taken up residence in what is a non active/abandoned site. Ugo suggested that every scenario should be adversarial. Ugo says that in the CC tradition there are no questions necessary but rather the reporters infer the questions from the fact based scenario. We took this out because it limited the scenario to a commercial as opposed to personal use of water.