Instructions for Professors:
This exercise can be done in class, preferably after you have lectured about CREAC organization, but perhaps before the first memo is due. It takes students about 15-20 minutes. This is based on a presentation I did called “puzzling.” The idea is to take a sample memo and break it apart (removing any headings) and have the students put the memo back together in the correct order and identify what the different sections are. This was a great teaching tool for me because it quickly showed me areas where students are struggling. If you don’t like this memo as a sample, any memo will work.
I make it into a competition. Last time the prize was a 5 hour energy drink. They work in teams of 2. They then place the document in what they believe is the correct order. Once a correct order is identified I go over it in class. For one of the classes, the first group got it right away, but I allowed students to continue working on it. They were still motivated to get it done correctly.
This memo is already out of order. The correct page order is: 1, 9, 7, 6, 2, 10, 4, 8, 11, 5, and 3. Once I reveal the order, I explain how it would also be acceptable to group pages 10 and 8 followed by pages 4 and 11. So an alternative order would be 1, 9, 7, 6, 2, 10, 8, 4, 11, 5, and 3. We talk about the pros and cons of separating the rule explanation from the rule application by introducing additional cases and how much of a separation is too much. I hope you find it useful. Please feel free to contact me with any questions. This also works well with trial briefs.
MEMORANDUM
To: Njeri Mathis Rutledge, Managing Partner
From:
Date: September 13, 2011
Re: Meadow Soprano's False Imprisonment Lawsuit
The client was actually confined during the second and third days of the intervention. When determining whether a parent actually confines an adult child, courts evaluate the reasonableness of any means of escape. A means of escape is reasonable if it does not present a danger of bodily or material harm (Peterson v. Sorlien, 128 with Eilers v. Coy, 1097). The client's broken leg prevented her from moving freely, and it is unreasonable to think that any means of escape was available to her.
In conclusion, the defendants actually confined the client during the second and third day of the intervention for purposes of filing suit under the common law definition of false imprisonment. The defendants did not provide any reasonable means of escape to the client and ignored her pleas for assistance.
The Eilers case and Meadow Soprano’s situation are analogous because both plaintiffs were physically unable to leave their respective confined areas. Eilers’ abductors relocated him and guarded him to prevent his departure, and the client’s broken leg similarly prevented her from moving from room to room–she could not even stand up from her chair without assistance. Considering the analysis in Eilers, one could argue that by relocating the client to a new location in her helpless state, subjecting her to a deprogramming attempt without notice, and ignoring her pleas for assistance to leave, the defendants were exercising control over the client in a guard-like manner. Without the aid of the responsible parties present, the client was powerless to escape. The argument that Eilers involved a person in a windowless, locked room instead of the client’s open and unlocked room with windows is irrelevant. Eilers was capable of utilizing windows and open doors as exits, but the client, in her compromised state, possessed no such ability. Eilers was also only handcuffed for a portion of his confinement, so an argument relying upon the bondage issue to negate the effect of the guards would be ineffective.
The defendants will inevitably highlight the client’s agreement to the intervention and initial placidity as consent in an attempt to negate the element of actual confinement. The client did not firmly oppose her confinement until the second day. This argument has merit and will most likely prevent liability for the first day and a portion of the second because damages may not be assessed for any portion of detention to which one freely consents (Peterson v. Sorlien, 128). The defendants will also cite Peterson’s ruling of immunity from liability for parents whose children consent to confinement at any point in the deprogramming attempt (Id., 129). The dicta of that ruling, however, shows that the ruling in Peterson was meant to have the reverse effect: to protect parents from liability in the initial phase of treatment, before their child overcomes impairment. The client, rather, expressed her opposition to being detained after already demonstrating her level-headedness during the first day of captivity. In their dissent, Justices Otis and Wahl warn against the potential misinterpretation of the majority ruling (Id., 132-136).
The client was actually confined under the common law definition of false imprisonment and did not consent to the latter portion of her confinement. Under the definition, the three elements of false imprisonment are "1) words or acts intended to confine a person; 2) actual confinement; and 3) awareness by the person that he or she is confined." The first and third elements do not present issues here: the defendants intended to confine the client for the purpose of an intervention, and it is not disputed that the client was aware of her alleged confinement throughout its entirety. The issue at hand is whether the client was ever actually confined, and if so, whether the defendants can raise the affirmative defense of consent to avoid liability.
Approximately one year ago, Meadow Soprano (the client) voluntarily joined a religious organization named Purgatory's Gate. The client was later involved in a car accident where she broke her leg and relied upon the medical insurance of Carmela Soprano (the mother), the client's mother and emergency contact. The mother and David Lanichi (the stepfather) offered to house the client until her leg had healed, and the client returned home with the mother and stepfather and was given a bedroom with three windows and a door that remained unlocked. The client had no access to a telephone for the entirety of the period in question.
The following day, with the assistance of Dr. Cecilia Graves (the counselor)–an intervention counselor–and many other family members and friends, the mother and stepfather surprised the client with an intervention, hoping to convince the client to leave Purgatory's Gate. The intervention lasted three days in a room with many windows and multiple, unlocked exits. The client is suing the mother, stepfather, and counselor for false imprisonment based on their conduct during that time.
Because the client seriously injured her leg in the car accident, she remained relatively incapacitated throughout the deprogramming attempt. She was unable to move from room to room or even stand without the direct assistance of the stepfather. On multiple occasions, when the client had expressed her express interest in leaving the intervention, the defendants verbally consented but did not assist the client in her immobilized state.
When leaving the hospital, the client did not openly object to staying at the home of the mother and stepfather, although she experienced internal conflicts about the matter. That evening, the mother denied the client's request to use a telephone to call Purgatory's Gate. The next morning, the client expressed an interest in returning to Purgatory's Gate, but the mother wanted to talk first. At the intervention that immediately followed, the client openly agreed to participate and was given permission to come and go at will, including regular breaks to eat and use the bathroom. During the second day of the deprogramming attempt, the client verbally refused to continue, and the stepfather gave her permission to go. After a failed attempt at departure, the client reluctantly agreed to the remainder of the intervention.
Conversely, a person who is aware of a safe and reasonable means of escape is not actually confined. Peterson involves a defendant father who picked up his cult-member daughter, the plaintiff, from college and delivered her without notice to the home of another for a deprogramming attempt. The plaintiff violently opposed the intervention for two days but became much more tranquil for the remainder of the sixteen-day deprogramming attempt. She participated in public activities with the defendant, went on walks alone, and flew on a public airplane with one of the participants of the intervention. After a disagreement with the deprogrammers, the plaintiff fled and sued for false imprisonment (Peterson v. Sorlien, 127). The court held that the plaintiff was not actually confined. It reasoned that a restriction does not constitute an actual confinement if one is aware of a reasonable means of escape that does not present a danger of bodily or material harm (Id., 128).
Under the common law definition of false imprisonment, does a parent "actually confine" her child when the child, a cult member, is physically incapacitated and consents to a portion of the confinement?
Probably yes. Under the common law, a person is actually confined when she possesses no safe or reasonable means of escape and does not consent to the confinement. Meadow Soprano’s broken leg, combined with the defendants’ control over her and refusal to provide her with requested assistance in departure, denied her any reasonable means of escape during the second and third days of her confinement.
The absence of a safe, reasonable means of escape establishes actual confinement. In Eilers, the parent defendants abducted the plaintiff, their adult child, in a deprogramming attempt. Captors of substantial size prevented the plaintiff's efforts of resistance and delivered him to a secure facility with boarded windows where he was handcuffed to his bed. After five and one-half days of detaining the plaintiff, the defendants attempted to transfer the plaintiff to a new facility, and the plaintiff managed to escape and alert the authorities (Eilers v. Coy, 1095). The court ruled that the plaintiff was actually confined and concluded that a person undergoing a deprogramming attempt who is “under guard,” has no reasonable means of escape available to him (Id., 1097).
Unlike the plaintiff in Peterson, the client never had a clear opportunity to escape under her own power or to solicit the assistance of an authority figure. Whereas Peterson could venture into public for sporting events or walks alone, the client’s injury plainly confined her to the venue of the defendants’ choosing, and she could only move elsewhere with the aid of another. Peterson also had the opportunity to elicit the aid of police officers and federal authority figures but instead chose to remain silent, while the client never encountered anyone else during the course of the intervention except the defendants and other members of the deprogramming attempt, all of whom ignored her pleas for help. The client was also never allowed to utilize a telephone, while Peterson freely made calls throughout her intervention. None of the court’s many examples of Peterson’s reasonable means of escape are applicable to the client’s situation.
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