Fall 2006 closed memo assignment workers' comp. horseplay rule a z doc
- 1. MEMORANDUM TO: Junior Associates A-M FROM: Senior Partner Goering and Senior Associate Stromberg RE: Potential representation of Jenny Fordham DATE: September 7, 2006 Yesterday I met with Jenny Fordham, a potential client who suffered a back injury at work. She has asked us to represent her in pressing a claim against her employer for workers' compensation to cover the medical costs of treating her injury. Because she was able to return to work, she does not seek ongoing workers' compensation benefits. Jenny lives in Gladstone, Missouri and works as a payroll accountant at the Proctor & Gamble (P & G) manufacturing facility in Kansas City, Kansas. On November 6, 2005, she clocked into work at 8:21 a.m. and began waiting for a required morning meeting with other accounting staff, scheduled for 8:30. As she was waiting for the meeting to begin, she sat in a conference chair with rollers, her legs extended and her feet propped up on another conference chair. She was engrossed in solving a sudoku puzzle while she waited for other employees to arrive for the meeting. Before the meeting started and while Ms. Fordham was thus engaged, a fellow employee, Bill Gordon, came up behind her. Gordon was Ms. Fordham's friendly rival in P & G's voluntary Sudoku Singles Club, whose members met at least twice weekly during coffee breaks and occasionally socialized after hours. Gordon could see that Ms. Fordham was concentrating on the Sudoku Singles Challenge Puzzle of the Month. Whoever completed the puzzle first would win a $1,000 purse, contributed by members of the club. To distract her, he playfully took hold of the chair's back and pushed it forward, dumping her off the chair and onto the terrazzo tile floor. Ms. Fordham hit the floor and immediately suffered a low back injury. Ms. Fordham insists she did nothing whatsoever to provoke Gordon to push the chair out from under her and dump her on the floor. She did not argue with Gordon before the incident, and she and Gordon had no feelings of ill will toward one another. In fact, they were good friends. Before the incident that morning, Ms. Fordham did not email or converse with Mr. Gordon or communicate with him in any other way. In fact, she did not even know he was approaching until she found herself sitting on the floor of the conference room. As a result of the incident, Ms. Fordham suffered a low back injury. After medical treatment she was able to return to her accounting position, but her low back remains symptomatic. To control continuing low back pain, she wears a TENS unit during waking hours, and she continues to require physical therapy and medical treatment to monitor her condition. Work disability is not an issue; Ms. Fordham just wants to know whether Proctor & Gamble must pay her ongoing medical costs under its mandatory workers' compensation coverage. The facts are not in dispute. After reviewing the attached legal authorities, please write a short office memo addressing the issue of law using the appropriate legal terms. I have attached the relevant statute and all the other materials you will need; please limit your research to these
- 2. materials and do not look up any other legal authority or background information. However, you may consult a law dictionary to ensure you understand any unfamiliar terms. Your memo should follow the standard format for office memoranda discussed in the Edwards text, including the appropriate headings. Please use 12-point Times New Roman font and 1.25-inch margins on all four sides, and please double-space your memo. Your completed memo should be approximately 5-7 pages in length. I will not read past the end of the seventh page, so be sure you include all required memo components within that overall page limit. A draft of your memo, including at minimum the Question Presented, Brief Answer, Facts, an outline of your Discussion, and Conclusion, is due no later than Thursday, September 14, at 5:00 p.m. The final memo, which will be graded, is due on or before Thursday, September 21, at 5:00 p.m. In preparing your office memo, please cite case authority consistent with the ALWD citation manual. For statutes, please use the following format: Kan. Stat. Ann. § xx-xxx (2006). While I expect you to make a reasonable effort to accurately cite your authorities, the precise form of your citations will not affect your grade on this assignment. You are expected to demonstrate that you know when you should cite authority to support a statement in your memo. You may discuss the research materials and your analysis with other students who are working on the same closed memo assignment. However, you may not discuss the assignment or any of the materials with anyone else - including other law students, your parents, your lawyer, your roommate, or your significant other. In addition, you may not show your written work to anyone, including your classmates in this course. Writing, revising, editing, and proofreading of your memo must be done by you alone. Any departure from these requirements will be considered a violation of the Washburn School of Law Honor Code and handled accordingly.