Capstone

Capstone: the flooded storage unit, from scattered documents and clashing accounts to a chronology, an evidence map and a case theory

Ravi Chandra runs Elm Street Cycles. He rented a storage unit from Brightwater Storage to keep forty bicycles, and in April, after heavy rain, he found water on the floor and nineteen ruined bicycles. He says Brightwater ignored his warning about damp. Brightwater says the unit was dry and the damage was his own fault. You are the lawyer he has come to. There is a bundle of documents, two accounts that cannot both be right and a deadline. This capstone takes you through the whole method on one invented dispute: separate fact from inference in each account, build and check the chronology, rank the sources, map the evidence to each element, decide what to do next and write a case theory that you could defend, including its weak points.

General education on investigating facts and forming a case theory, using invented people, businesses, documents and events. It is not legal advice, it does not state the law of any country and it is not a substitute for your own professional code, your regulator’s guidance or the rules of your court. Do not use it as a guide to contacting witnesses, recording conversations or gathering evidence in a real matter without the advice of a qualified lawyer in the place concerned.