Questions of Fact versus Questions of Law

CPCU® 530 makes a few references to questions of fact and questions of law, but doesn’t do the best job defining either term. This tip will give you a crash course on the differences between the two so you don’t get tripped up on your exam.

Questions of fact are questions decided on by a judge or jury that are specific only to the case at hand. On the other hand, questions of law are questions decided by the judge (never the jury) on how a law should be applied, not just to the case at hand but generally speaking.

For example, let’s say Joe get fired because he was caught drinking alcohol on his lunch break, but Joe sues for wrongful termination claiming that he is an alcoholic and that there are laws protecting him from being fired because he considers his alcohol addiction a medical condition.

The first question to decide in this case is whether or not Joe’s drinking was a result of alcoholism (as opposed to just careless, bad judgment). This would be a question of fact because the question is specific only to this case – whether or not Joe is an alcoholic will have nothing to do with any other person’s case even if they were suing their employer over a similar situation.

Now, if they decide that Joe was indeed drinking as a result of his alcoholism, the second question of whether or not there is any law that grants him job protection is a question of law. It is a general question of how the law should apply to any party with the same scenario asking for the same protection.

To recap, here are the key things you’ll need to remember for your exam:

Questions of fact
- Inquire about the facts of one specific case
- May be decided on by a judge or a jury
Questions of law
- Consider how the law should apply to any similar case
- Are only decided on by a judge (never a jury)

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Based on CPCU 530: Applying Legal Concepts to Insurance (1st edition)
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~~Full-length practice exam~~
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