Jeff Seid
Professor Campbell
Business Law I (280)
April 11, 2014
Courtroom Visitation On April 8, 2014 I visited the Burbank Courthouse located on 300 East Olive Ave. in the city of Burbank. The Burbank courthouse is part of the Los Angeles superior courts and it is located in the North Central District. I arrived at 8:30 am and received instructions to put all my belongings in a tray in order for them to x-ray (scan) my belongings, I was then instructed to walk through a metal detector. Once I was done with the courthouse’s security measures I approached one of the security guards and asked where I could sit-in for a criminal or civil case, he replied that criminal court cases were being held in the first floor and civil cases were on the second floor. I decided since we were mostly dealing with civil cases that I would sit in a civil court case and headed to the second floor. When I arrived on the second floor there was two civil courts, Court A and Court B, I decided to go to court B. When I entered courtroom B there was a trial already going on in which the plaintiff had failed to appear, the judge was not pleased but decided not to dismiss the case and send notice to the plaintiff of his obligation to appear for trial. The defendant was Alternative States of California LLC and the case involved a breach of contract. The second case I witnessed was a civil case which would turn out to be a good case. The case was between Te Chuan Chu vs. Gui Yun Sun and it involved a breach of contract with intent of conspiracy. The dilemma in this case was a loan of $190,000 by Mr. Chu, the plaintiff, to Aning Dun who is the half-daughter of the defendant, Gui Yun Sun. At the moment that the trial was taking place Gui Yun Sun who is the defendant could not attend since she was in China and was being represented by her daughter Elizabeth Sun. The case started with the discussion of a juror who had been picked for the jury but now was claiming that he could not participate because he was a producer for low-budget movie and filming had started the week of the trial. The judge questioned the juror on why he had not claimed at the beginning that he would not be able to serve in the jury and instead decided to remain silent. The judge’s conclusion was that the juror thought he would only have to serve in the jury for one day then claim he could not continue to serve and his obligation would have been fulfilled without being re-scheduled for a later trial. The judge informed him that even though he had served one day he would not be excused from his jury duty obligation and would have to be re-scheduled for a later trial. The judge also informed the juror that because he had decided to leave the trial without sufficient notice the jury would now have only one alternate juror instead of two which might affect the outcome of the case. After the juror was dismissed from the trial another topic for discussion aroused concerning evidence which were labeled “exhibits”, these exhibits were numbered from 101-122 and were placed in an exhibit book. The discussion was that the plaintiff’s lawyer had rearranged the order of the exhibits and was attempting to resubmit the order of the exhibit book. The judge was not pleased at the attempt of resubmitting the order of the exhibits and instructed the lawyer that they would continue with the original order of the exhibits. The lawyer pleaded to the judge that it was important and at one point became agitated but the judge made him proceed with the original order of exhibits. The judge instructed that they would begin the preliminary instructions to the jurors and instructed the bailiff to call the jury in. Once the jury was seated each juror was provided with paper and pencil for notes and the judge proceeded with the preliminary instructions. The judge first relieved the recorder from transcribing and then gave them instructions which stressed the importance that in no way should their