A Moot Court is an event in which law students present briefs and oral arguments on both sides of hypothetical cases. The cases are decided before a jury of students.
The object of a “moot court” is to provide experience for students in legal research, in writing briefs and in presenting legal arguments.
Moot court cases are entirely imaginary, and no one should mistake these made-up examples for real legal actions, even though they usually involve precedents from real cases. Also see these links (Research for moot court) and (Writing a brief).
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Spring 2025 Moot Court Cases
1. Baggins v The Daily Planet et al (Right of private people to be forgotten)
A private person says his reputation is being damaged by information that should be taken down from the web. Fifteen years ago, Reid B. Baggins was mistakenly arrested for burglary, but was acquitted and all charges were dropped. The court ordered that his arrest information be expunged from the record. However, the web and news sites that carried information about the arrest, especially the Daily Planet, refused to take the story down, saying that neither Baggins nor the courts have a right to suppress truthful information. Now, whenever he applies for a job, Mr. Baggins has to explain that he is not really a burglar. He feels this is unfair and that under privacy law, he should have a “right to be forgotten,” and is suing to have that recognized. He argues that a minor arrest can have major consequences in a person’s life, which is contrary to the spirit of the law in that it presupposes guilt and that it forecloses the prospect of redemption. While European GDPR law has a “right to be forgotten” in cases like this, the US does not, and Baggins believes that it should. (Background: See this study by Eumi K. Lee in Rutgers Law Review and this article in The Conversation. (Again, please note that these moot cases are hypothetical, not real).
2. California v FenceDown (Prior restraint, fighting words, privacy)
“FenceDown” is selling an phone app that reads the cell phone numbers on a local network and then allows its client to text a message to them. The app can even identify users with an infrared locator so a client can point their phone at strangers and send a message. This “FenceDown” technology does not reveal or retain the phone numbers, so the company says it is not an invasion of privacy. Instead, it is a First Amendment-protected activity in a public space similar to taking a video or shouting out loud.
The problem, according to an injunction filed by Sacramento district attorney Chris D Miller, is that the technology enables fighting words, and that highly disparaging text messages are being sent to in-person groups in bars, in traffic, and in church and government meetings. These messages are leading to fistfights and road rage incidents, and Miller says this means that the technology itself should be banned under the Brandenburg v Ohio standard for imminent action and the Chaplinsky standard for “fighting words.” In one recent incident, people attending a city council meeting all received an anonymous text message saying: “Everyone in this room is an idiot, especially you.” The council meeting had to be adjourned a few minutes later after a shouting match broke out. In another incident, politicians at a campaign debate were all told that they “had been discovered” and should “get out of town immediately.” Some did. FenceDown says this technology itself should not be made illegal since it is useful in a variety of legal ways. In any event, typical messages are not calls to violent action but simply the sort of “unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials” that are protected under the Sullivan standard. (Again, please note that these moot cases are hypothetical, not real).
3. Mississippi v Unplanned Parenthood (Advertising, differences in state laws)
Unplanned Parenthood is a non-profit women’s rights organization advertising in media that is likely to reach women in Mississippi. Abortions have been illegal in Mississippi since Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. Now the question is whether it is legal to advertise abortion services in another state. A federal court in Alabama ruled March 31, 2025 that it is legal to cross state lines to encourage abortions, but this case will undoubtedly go to a higher appeals court. This case questions advocacy through direct mail and magazine advertising. Travel and advertising for abortion access is protected by “shield laws” that protect people in abortion legal states from prosecution. Remember, old state laws (such as this Virginia statute) may have been overturned (for example in Bigelow v Virginia, 1975) or changed or repealed.
4. Kahn v Cerf and Goober News (Cyber-mobbing, doxing, and privacy law)
James Kahn was arrested (and later convicted) of burglary on the same day that a young Jessica Taylor was murdered. Kahn happened to look like the man that a police artist’s sketch depicted after eyewitnesses descriptions, but his alibi was firmly established later. Nevertheless, a Fred Cerf, a well known musician and social media leader, took up Jessica Taylor’s cause and published as much information about Kahn that he could find, including name, social security number, drivers license number, credit card number and other details of his life. The information was published on Goober News, which is both a web and print publication (new details). Kahn sued Cerf and Goober for invasion of privacy but Goober said it was exempt under Section 230 and Kahn said he was reporting newsworthy information. ( See Erik Money 2020 – 2021, CONSTRAINING THE CYBERMOB: USING A DOXING NOTICE AND TAKEDOWN REGIME TO OPTIMIZE THE SOCIAL UTILITY OF ONLINE SHAMING. Journal of Law and Technology at Texas, 4, 1. and other law reviews).
5. Tumnus Publishing v Boston Baked AI (Copyright and AI)
In a case remarkably similar to Thomson Reuters V Ross Intelligence, a legal publishing firm (Tumnus) is suing an artificial intelligence software company (Boston) for using its databases of court decisions to train an AI system. Note that this is an old area for copyright and fair use disputes. Westlaw (now owned by Thomson Reuters) was involved in a copyright case in the 1990s with Lexis – Nexis that involved reproducing actual opinions and corrections. At the root of the case was whether court opinions were in the public domain. (They are). Also, in the 1991 case Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, the court found that only original arrangements of facts can be copyrighted, not the facts themselves. In Thomson, the issue is whether non-public domain case notes are in the public domain. Here, the issue is whether wholesale training on a proprietary database is an infringement under the Feist “sweat of the brow” doctrine.
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Case signup sheet is available here