Posted: May 18th, 2017

Jorge owned a manufacturing plant. He realized that it would be much cheaper to dump polluted water from the manufacturing process into the adjacent river rather than pipe the water through an expensive filtering process. He asked his lawyer, Delia, whether it would violate any laws at all to dump the water into the river. Delia assured him, in an opinion letter, that such action would not violate the law. After dumping the water into the river,

Jorge owned a manufacturing plant. He realized that it would be much cheaper to dump polluted water from the manufacturing process into the adjacent river rather than pipe the water through an expensive filtering process. He asked his lawyer, Delia, whether it would violate any laws at all to dump the water into the river. Delia assured him, in an opinion letter, that such action would not violate the law. After dumping the water into the river, Jorge was prosecuted for polluting river water. Will his reliance on Delia’s advice defeat the charge? (A) Yes, Jorge’s reliance was reasonable. (B) Yes, he did not realize it was against the law to dump the water into the river. (C) No, relying on the advice of a lawyer generally cannot be used against a criminal charge. (D) No, the crime is likely a strict liability offense.