WILLIAMS V. EMPLOYERS LIABILITY ASSURANCE CORP, LTD., p. 54 (U.S.C.A. 5th Cir. 1961).

• What is the underlying dispute?
• What sources of law did the plaintiff invoke as bases for relief?
• La. Civ. Code art. 2315: "Every act whatever of man that causes damage to another obliges him by whose fault it happened to repair it."
• La. Civ. Code art. 177: "The master is answerable for the damage caused to individuals or to the community in general by whatever is thrown out of his house into the street or public road, and inasmuch as the master has the superintendence and police of his house, and is responsible for the faults committed therein."
• On what basis does plaintiff argue that art. 177 applies to her claim?
• What is the court's ruling with respect to the applicability of art. 177?
• does the judge reach this result on the basis of a "literal" interpretation? What does that mean?
• what interpretive technique does the judge use in resolving this question? (contextual, historical, teleological?)
• is it significant that Judge Wisdom is a federal judge, purporting to apply Louisiana state law?
• As the editors point out, Judge Wisdom was "trained in the civil law system"
• what does that mean?
• how, if at all, does his approach to the issue reflect that training, as distinguished from what a "common-law" judge would do?
• What is the difference between "delict" and "quasi-delict"?
• Why might the Louisiana codifiers in 1808 have adopted art. 177, where the French codifiers (whose 1804 code was a model for the Louisiana one) rejected it? Why might the Louisiana legislature have repealed it in 1990?