Mark Hunacek

Photo courtesy Adrienne Hunacek

J. D., Drake University Law School, 1981
Ph. D. (Mathematics), Rutgers University, 1978
M. S. (Mathematics), Courant Institute, NYU, 1974
B. S., Brooklyn College, 1972

Con E 380: ENGINEERING LAW Fall 2009

Instructor Information

Mark Hunacek
e-mail: mhunacek@iastate.edu (this is the preferred method of getting in touch with me)
Office: Town 352

Course Information

Meets: T Th 6:30-8, Room 305 Carver
It is your responsibility to check this webpage daily. Announcements may appear here that are not made in class. Any announcement made on this webpage overrides anything that you heard, or think you heard, in class.
Text (Optional): Cynthia Gayton, "Legal Aspects of Engineering" (8th ed.), Kendall/Hunt
Policies/syllabus
Announcements:

1. Here are some notes describing how to find and cite judicial opinions, and specifying some opinions of the Iowa Supreme Court that we will discuss this semester.

2. As an amusing change of pace, this document, circulated among attorneys, consists of actual statements made in court testimony. The items are all taken from a book called Disorder in the Court by Charles Sevilla.

3. IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING CLASS ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3: To accommodate those wishing to attend the football game without cancelling class, class will be held at 5:30 PM and will end at 6:30 on this evening only. If our usual room (305 Carver) is free then, we will meet there. I will also arrange for a back-up room in case the room is not free then, and will post the number of that room on this webpage shortly.

4. The first test of the semester will be on October 13, during the normal class time. The test (which will consist of approximately 40 multiple-choice questions) is intended to take an hour or less to do, but I have no objection to letting you use the full class time to take it. It will cover all material taught up to and including class on Tuesday, October 6. On Thursday, October 8, we will go over the first exam from last semester. If new material is taught on the 8th that will be covered on the second test.

5. Here are the grades for the first test, arranged by the last four or five digits of your student ID number (except for the one student for whom I did not have an ID number; that student's score appears next to a blank.) Fair warning for future exams: failure to write down your ID number on the bubble sheet will result in a loss of points. The number to the right of your ID number is the number of questions, out of 40, which were answered correctly. The mean and median on the test were both 30.

6. Class will be cancelled on Tuesday, October 27, as I will be out of town.We will make up this class later in the semester by holding review sessions for the second test or final (or both) after class.

7. The second exam will be on November 19, 2009. It will cover all topics from our discussion of remedies for breach of contract in certain construction situations, up to and including (unless subsequent announcement to the contrary is made) the end of class on November 12. On November 17 we will go over the second exam from last semester.

8. Here is a brief that was recently filed in a district court case which discusses both the Iowa whistleblower statute and discharge in violation of public policy, two topics talked about in class. The pagination is a little strange because of the conversion to PDF format. In addition, here is an appellate brief that was filed in the RPC Liquidation ("beans in the beam") case. These two briefs should give you an idea of how some of the concepts discussed in class actually get litigated in practice, and they should also give you an overview of the law regarding these topics.

9. Here are the results of the second test. As before, the number to the right of your ID number is the number of questions, out of 40, that were answered correctly. The average (mean) score was 32.75.