Example 13.2
Takeaway point 13.2: Introductions should frame how judges see your dispute.
The following Introduction presents key facts, key laws, and a valuable theme. Most important, it shapes the way that readers see the case.
Source: From BAW’s brief in BMW v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1995).
This phrase is critical, as it tries to get readers to imagine the difficulties of getting a car from Germany to a dealership in the United States — crossing the sea in huge boats that are pounded by giant waves, for instance. This phrase is designed to make readers think, “sure, it makes perfect sense that cars would suffer dings and dents on the way to dealerships.”
The other side alleged that BMW knowingly hid damage that compromised the durability of BMW’s paint jobs. By contrast, this sentence refers to BMWs incurring “minor damage,” on rare “occasion[s].” Moreover, the actor in the sentence is not BMW. Rather cars themselves “experience.... damage.” This clever phrasing avoids placing the blame on BMW or its delivery company.
Does every “minor" issue need to be disclosed? Or can minor dings and chips simply be fixed? The brief attempts to put readers in BMW’s position and to lead them to the same conclusion that BMW reached about how to handle “minor damage.” The brief seeks to frame the way that judges see the case.
BMW tries to become the good guy here: it adopted the “strictest disclosure threshold.”
This statement suggests that BMW’s duty to disclose in Alabama was governed by common law (because Alabama had not yet adopted the 3 percent disclosure requirement).
This sentence makes the jury award sound outlandish in two significant ways. First, the jury awarded $4 million to a man whose car was, at most, worth $1,000 less than he paid for it. Thus, the award was too large. And second, the sentence tells us that the plaintiffs failed to prove (or that the jury failed to find) that BMW’s out-of-state practices were unlawful — making punitive damages seem less advisable.This Introduction conveys the theme that the plaintiffs are making a mountain out of few paint chips.