The final project will consist of a five-page Memorandum of Law discussing tort issues based on these facts:
Jonzelle and Grady Jones are a married couple. They have been married for two years and recently Grady purchased a new Toyota Camry as their family car. His name is listed solely on the title of the car as the owner. Jonzelle drives the car routinely though to run errands. Her husband warns her that when she is driving not to text or take funny videos on her iPhone which she likes to upload to social media. She is notorious for using her iPhone while driving.
One afternoon, she was running an errand to her local mall when she rear-ended the car in front of her while she was going 45 miles per hour in a 50-mph zone. Sofia Romero was the driver of the other car (that she hit), and she suffered whiplash and her left arm was badly broken.
Jonzelle’s Instagram account showed that she posted a picture on Instagram of herself driving her car with a funny face approximately 1 minute prior to her accident. She also sent five text messages and a short video all within the last 8 minutes prior to her accident.
Sofia was taken to the Palms West Hospital where she was treated and then admitted for surgery on her arm. Dr. Garcia was the orthopedic surgeon on call and informed her that she would lose her left arm unless she consented to an immediate surgery. Sofia agreed to the surgery, which Dr. Garcia performed and was successful in saving her badly broken arm. However, the scrub nurse, Nurse Jackie, did not account for all the packing cloths used in the surgery correctly and a 2 x 2 inch cotton packing cloth was left stuffed inside Sofia’s arm. The cotton packing caused great pain until it was discovered and removed. An additional surgery was required to remove the packing cloth which caused increase pain and expenses for Sofia.
Sofia comes to your law office to determine what her legal rights are and who may be liable for her injuries.
After reviewing the facts and researching the applicable law, you should address the following in your Memorandum of Law:
- Identify who Sofia can sue and explain why. Identify the torts that will be the basis for the lawsuits and explain why.
- When negligence is involved, identity whether each of the elements of negligence are present in each negligence situation. Apply the facts to those elements (as we did/will do in the Week 1 discussion).
- Find legal authority that supports Sofia’s claims in each of the possible claims you have identified and cite to those sources.
The Memorandum must follow these guidelines for full credit:
- Double-spaced
- Times New Roman (12) font (or a comparable font type)
- One-inch margins all around
- Minimum five (5) complete pages
- No Title page or reference (Legal Memorandums do not have title pages and sources/ citations should be included in the Memorandum and not in a reference page at the end)
- All sources should be cited to in the body of the writing (in-line citations)
- All citations should be in Bluebook format. NOTE: Wikipedia is NOT an acceptable source.
- Include at least 7 sources (five of which are required to be cases and the other two are required to be scholarly, reliable sources).