Bento Cuisine is a lunch-cart business. It occupies a street corner in Texarkana, a city that straddles the border of Arkansas and Texas. Across the street— and across the state line, which runs down the middle of the street—is Rico’s Tacos. The two businesses compete for customers. Recently, Bento has begun to suspect that Rico’s is engaging in competitive behavior that is illegal. Bento’s manager overheard several of Rico’s employees discussing these competitive tactics while on a break at a nearby Starbucks. Bento files a lawsuit against Rico’s in a federal court based on diversity jurisdiction.
(a) The first group will discuss whether Rico’s could file a motion claiming that the federal court lacks jurisdiction over this dispute.
(b) The second group will assume that the case goes to trial. Bento believes that it has both the law and the facts on its side. Nevertheless, at the end of the trial, the jury decides against Bento, and the judge issues a ruling in favor of Rico’s. If Bento is unwilling to accept this result, what are its options?
(c) As discussed in this chapter, hearsay is literally what a witness says he or she heard another person say. A third group will decide whether Bento’s manager can testify about what he heard some of Rico’s employees say to one another while at a coffee shop. This group will also discuss what makes the admissibility of hear-say evidence potentially unethical.