Case Memorization for a BA final

I wanted to get y’all’s feedback on this. I took a BA final on Tuesday that I honestly didn’t study much for but the professor tested so heavily on cases— literally one of the essay questions was “Compare and contrast the holding of Stone v. Ritter with New Jersey Bank.”

I kind of figured case memorization was reserved for classes with heavy Supreme Court case law (I.e. civ pro, con law) so I’m curious if others think it’s weird that my professor emphasizes memorizing the cases so much.