The Trial
Prosecution
To: Ms. Tona Boyd, Mr. Jeff Eyerman, Mr. Nick Salazar
From: Gyre and Gimbal Environmental Law, Inc.
119 Second Street, Suite 2A
Notre Dame, IN 46556,
Subject: New case
Dear Tona, Jeff, and Nick,
I'm glad you agreed to add another case to your busy trial schedules. It's a lead poisoning case, and I think you should have a shot at a hefty judgement under Title X and maybe Title VIII. At least you'll have a sympathetic victim to show the jury.
Look into the case law (you should be able to find some law review articles on Lexis/Nexis, and it should not be too much work if you split them up) and decide whether one or both of these approaches looks promising for this case.
You must give Professor Judith Fox at the Notre Dame Law School a call ASAP. She has a lot of practical experience with landlord/tenant law, and she is willing to meet with your team this week or early next week to introduce you to the relevant cases and discuss your legal strategy. Her phone number is 1-7795, or you can email her at fox.30@nd.edu.
I would appreciate receiving regular informal updates about your legal strategy via email.
Since you are still at the beginning of your employment with Gyre and Gimbal, we will require your team to collaborate on a single three-page report after the trial. Just to remind you, this joint report should 1) describe the legal arguments raised by the prosecution and defense, and 2) evaluate the success of these arguments with the jury.
Best regards,
Marya Lieberman
PS: Here is the text of the letter we received from the client:
My name is John Cerrito. I would like to hire your firm to represent me in court on a contingent fee basis. My little boy got lead poisoning and the doctor says he ought to have chelation therapy, which is very expensive and our health insurance does not cover it. The doctor thinks that the lead came from our house; the landlady, Joanna Mount, agrees that there is probably lead in the house we rent, but she says he could have gotten the lead somewhere else and it is not her responsibility to take the lead out of the house. We have talked to some other Hispanic families who rent from our landlady and they also have lead in their homes. When I talked to Ms. Gyre on the phone, she said we might be able to sue her under Title X or VIII of the Civil Rights Act. I have decided I want to go through with the case and bring the suit as soon as we can so that nobody else's children get hurt by lead poisoning.
Sincerely yours,
John Cerrito
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