Memorandum of law

Course outcome addressed in this Assignment:

PA201-1: Cite primary and secondary legal sources using the legal Bluebook.

PA201-3: Communicate the results of legal research to appropriate parties.

Instructions

Based on the slip and fall fact pattern from the previous 2 weeks please provide the following information. Please note the additional facts that were brought into the case that will help with this week’s research.

Just to refresh your memory here are the facts that you have so far:

Samantha Smith came into your office. She was shopping at a local grocery store a few months ago and had an accident. While she was in the aisle with shower items she slipped and fell on some shampoo that had leaked out of one of the bottles.

Samantha had to be taken to the hospital. She was diagnosed with a broken hip and had to spend the night at the hospital. She will also have to go through many months of physical therapy. Samantha has no healthcare insurance and is a young single mother to a 2 year old son.

The store says that they were not aware of the spill of the shampoo. The store said that an employee checks the aisles for anything on the floors at the top of the hour. The day Samantha fell, the employee in charge of the aisle inspection was an older gentleman with glasses. The shampoo on the floor was a clear gel. She fell about 1:30 p.m. The store log says an inspection was last done at 1:00 p.m. The accident happened at a store in Indiana.

You filed a complaint in trial court alleging negligence on the part of the store and seeking damages for Samantha’s injuries. In its answer to our complaint that you filed last month, the store alleges that Samantha had a duty to avoid the spill in the aisle. The store claims that she is at much as fault as they are. Further they allege that she was too distracted by her 2 year old son in the cart, who was misbehaving, to notice the floor.

Part I:

Please search for a statute in Indiana that discusses comparative fault. Please provide the full citation to the statute as well as a short FIRAC applying it to this case. Your FIRAC should be in the form of a short interoffice memorandum.

As you may recall from your studies in PA205 the proper parts of a memo include:

1. Statement of facts
2. Question Presented
3. Brief Answer
4. Applicable statute
5. Discussion (This is where you will apply the statute to your facts)
6. Conclusion

Part II:

Locate a case that goes along with your statute. Use the case to help you understand the statute and how to apply it to the facts.

Please research to also find a case from Indiana on the issue of comparative fault. Give the full citation and two or three sentences about the case. Use the case above to help you write your memo.

Grading

Please review the Assignment grading rubric in for more information on how your Assignment will be graded.

Submitting Your Work

Put your responses in a Microsoft Word document. Save it in a location and with the proper naming convention: username-Course Name-section-Unit x_Assignment.doc (username is your Kaplan username, section is your course section, x is your Unit number). When you are ready to submit it, go to the Dropbox and complete the steps below:

1. Click the link that says “Submit an Assignment.”
2. In the “Submit to Basket” menu, select Unit x: Assignment.
3. In the “Comments” field, make sure to add at least the title of your paper.
4. Click the “Add Attachments” button.
5. Follow the steps listed to attach your Word document.

To view your graded work, come back to the Dropbox or go to the Gradebook after your instructor has evaluated it. Make sure that you save a copy of your submitted work.