Magnolia Apartment has retained us to defend a lawsuit brought by John Cleaver in Richland County Common Pleas Court on behalf of his 10-year old son Joey, who was injured while playing in the picnic are of the apartments. The Cleavers do not live at Magnolia Apartments. We answered, denying all claims of negligence and premises liability, and asserting the affirmative defense of contributory negligence. When we deposed Joey, he admitted that:
He had taken a short cut across the Magnolia Apartment picnic area to ge to Targe after school and He was goofing off with his singshot ad the clod of dirt flew backwards and hit him hard in the face.
I believe we have goods grounds for summary judgment. I will draft the Motion for Summary Judgment, so you do not need to prepare that. Please research and prepare the Memorandum in Support for my review. I seem to remember the Kirven case from a few years back.