Question: Draft an internal legal memorandum on the following subjects:
a. Your law firm represents an eight-year-old boy. The child attends a private school in your local city. This particular school adheres to the idea of corporal punishment. Last month, the child was accused of drawing an improper picture of his third-grade teacher. The teacher found the crumpled picture in the trash can. The words "DO IT TO IT" were written at the bottom of the drawing. The teacher, Mary Doit, compared the handwriting on the paper with that of the third-grade pupils in her room. (Ms. Doit is the third-grade teacher at the school.) Ms. Doit determined that the child, Jon Wapped, was the miscreant involved. She ordered Jon to the front of the room and commanded him to "drop his pants." Although Jon protested, he was told that he was to drop his pants and bend over the desk to receive his punishment. Jon complied and was spanked with a large wooden paddle. The children in the class laughed at him as he received this spanking. Jon, by and through his guardian ad litem, would like to pursue a claim against the school and Ms. Doit. The elements of the claim will be assault, battery, false imprisonment, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. (See Chapter 8 for the actual complaint.) Prepare an internal legal memorandum outlining the law in your jurisdiction on these claims. You may wish to begin your research with the U.S. Supreme Court case, Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S. Ct. 1401, 51 L. Ed.2d 711 (1977) holding that corporal punishment in a school setting is not cruel and unusual. See also Annotation, Teacher's Civil Liability for Administering Corporal Punishment to Pupil, 43 A.L.R.2d 469.
b. Draft an external legal memorandum to support a motion for summary judgment in the Wapped v. Doit case described in part a. The motion will maintain that the defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law as a result of consent and reasonable discipline.
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