Assume you are a first-year associate attorney working at Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, the largest and most prestigious law firm in Miami, Florida. On your first assignment, you are assigned to work with Noah Melnick, the head of the firm’s Litigation Department.
After returning from the winter holiday break, you were asked to report to Mr. Melnick’s office for an 11:00 a.m. meeting with a potential new client, James Sullivan. Not only is James Sullivan an old friend of Mr. Melnick’s from New York Law School, but he is also a lawyer who served as a law clerk for several federal judges in town.
At the meeting, James Sullivan described how he and his family traveled to Marco Island, Florida to visit his in-laws. He also described how he had intended to take his five-year-old daughter, Lucy, to a popular theme park in Orlando, Florida after visiting his in-laws. He did not make it to the popular theme park because of multiple unfortunate events.
Because Mr. Sullivan’s in-laws had other guests visiting during the same time, Mr. Sullivan, his wife, Mary, and Lucy, decided to stay at the Broad Ripple Hotel, a budget hotel in a rough section of Naples, Florida. The hotel has a strict no pet policy. Mr. Sullivan was aware of that policy when he booked the room because he had considered traveling with his Boston Terrier, Sonny, but did not do so because of the hotel’s no pet policy. Mr. Sullivan booked and paid for the hotel via a third-party internet travel site, CheapestHotels.com, which operates out of Bulgaria.
During the check-in procedure, Mr. Sullivan signed a stack of paperwork handed to him by the hotel’s receptionist. One papers included the following language:
“By the execution of this agreement, I accept and assume full responsibility for any and all injuries, damages (both economic and non-economic), and losses of any type, which may occur to me or my guest, and I hereby fully and forever release and discharge the company, its insurers, employees, officers, directors, and associates, from any and all claims, demands, damages, rights of action, or causes of action, present or future, whether the same be known or unknown, anticipated, or unanticipated, resulting from or arising out the use of the facilities of this hotel during my stay.”
On the second night of the Sullivan family’s stay at the Broad Ripple, Mr. Sullivan received a few emails from his law office about a pressing legal matter. While he worked on some legal research, he told his wife and daughter to go down to the hotel pool for a few hours of fun before dinner. After an hour or so, Mr. Sullivan received a call from his wife, who was yelling about a horrible accident at the pool, telling him he needed to come down to the pool immediately. She then hung up the phone.
Thinking the worst and in a state of panic, Mr. Sullivan threw on a pair of shoes but did not tie his shoelaces. On his way to the pool, Mr. Sullivan tripped down a flight of stairs, spraining his ankle and ripping his suit pants. When he got to the pool, he confronted a horrible sight: his daughter’s face was full of blood, and his wife was in tears. Unsure of what happened, Mr. Sullivan started yelling, “What happened to my daughter?”
Mary told him Lucy was bitten in the face by a dog. According to Mary, an elderly couple (Edward and Jackie Kettles) were sitting at the poolside bar with a Greyhound dog named Killer. Killer was adorned with a red vest with white lettering indicating he was a “service dog.” Mary said Lucy approached the couple and asked if she could pet their dog. The Kettles agreed but warned Lucy not to pet the dog on his back. Unfortunately, Lucy did not listen and the dog nipped her face. That caused three large lacerations on Lucy’s face.
At the time of the dog bite, Mary had been drinking a beer, while chatting up the beefy lifeguard on duty at the time. After the dog bit Lucy, Mary passed out at the sight of Lucy’s blood. She quickly regained her senses, however, and called her husband, James.
Rather than calling an ambulance or the police, one of the hotel employees (Harry Sanchez) told Mr. Sullivan that he was willing to drive the family to the local hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in Naples, Florida. Unable to think straight, Mr. Sullivan agreed to allow the hotel employee to drive them to the hospital.
After waiting three hours for service, the doctors at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center told James Sullivan that they were unable to repair Lucy’s face because the hospital did not have a pediatric plastic surgeon on staff. During the three hours of waiting, doctors at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center only cleaned and bandaged Lucy’s wounds. They told James that he should never have brought his daughter to the Good Samaritan Hospital, but should have taken Lucy straight to the Children’s Hospital in Naples, Florida. After that, Mr. Sullivan, who was limping because of his sprained ankle, called a taxi to take his family to the Children’s Hospital.
After thirty minutes, a taxi owned by the Naples Taxi Company and driven by Charles Norwood (an 85 year old retired naval officer) arrived. While driving the Sullivan family to the Children’s Hospital, Norwood, who has epilepsy, suffered a seizure. Because of the seizure, he lost control of the taxi. The taxi crashed into another car, causing serious injuries to the other driver. Mr. Sullivan suffered minor injuries, Mary suffered major injuries, and his daughter, Lucy, miraculously suffered no further injuries.
The ambulance that arrived at the scene of the accident took Lucy to the Children’s Hospital, where skilled plastic surgeons repaired the facial lacerations caused by the dog bite earlier that day. The doctors are currently unable to determine whether her facial scars are permanent.
Lucy is now terrified of dogs, suffers from nightmares, and her classmates at school have started to call her names. Mr. Sullivan’s ankle sprain has healed, but he has trouble sleeping. Mary is still in the hospital with multiple injuries. Mr. Sullivan has not visited his wife since returning home because he blames her for the incident.
After returning home, Mr. Sullivan conducted some independent research online. He learned that the Big Service Dog Company (i.e., the company that issued the service dog vest and registration papers to the Kettles family) issues thousands of “service dog registration papers” per year. Located in Buffalo, New York, Big Service Dog Company does not conduct any dog training. Instead, the company asks its customers to attest to a series of facts. The customers are required to state that they have a disability, that they possess a “legitimate need” for the dog to assist them, that they will comply with all state laws, and that they agree to train their dog as a service dog.
According to Mr. Sullivan’s research, Jackie Kettles has an anxiety disorder. But Killer is a retired Greyhound race dog with no service dog training. Mr. Sullivan also discovered that employees at the Broad Ripple Hotel did not ask the Kettles to produce evidence that Killer received service dog training because they believed such an inquiry would violate the Americans With Disabilities Act.
After the meeting, Mr. Melnick asked you to write an internal legal memorandum, no longer than five to seven-pages discussing the merits of claims that James Sullivan and his family may have, given the above fact pattern. Mr. Melnick also wants you to consult the applicable law and make a recommendation as to whether the firm should retain Mr. Sullivan as a client. He handed you the access code for the firm’s Nexis Uni account and told you to research the applicable law on that site. Mr. Melnick also directed you to look at CUNY School of Law’s website for an example of an internal legal memo, and to use that format for your memo. Next, Mr. Melnick told you that you should also note whether any additional information is needed. He wants you to use Bluebook citation when citing any applicable laws, cases, or other resources.
https://www.law.cuny.edu/academics/academic-resources-support/legal-writing-center/student-resources/drafting-a-law-office-memorandum/
