Jenny Fordham suffered a back injury at work when a coworker playfully pushed her chair from behind, causing her to fall to the floor. While she was able to return to her job as a payroll accountant, she continues to experience back pain and requires ongoing medical treatment. She has asked the law firm to represent her in pressing a workers' compensation claim against her employer to cover her continuing medical costs. The memo assigns junior associates to write a 6-8 page legal memorandum analyzing whether the employer must pay Fordham's ongoing medical costs under the state's mandatory workers' compensation coverage based on the provided facts and legal authorities.

1. MEMORANDUM
TO: Junior Associates A-M
FROM: Senior Partner Goering
RE: Potential representation of Jenny Fordham
DATE: October 5, 2009
Yesterday I met with Jenny Fordham, a potential client who suffered a back injury
at work. She has asked us to represent her in pressing a claim against her employer for
workers’ compensation to cover the medical costs of treating her injury. Because she
was able to return to work, she does not seek ongoing workers’ compensation benefits.
Jenny lives in Joplin, Missouri and works as a payroll accountant at the Jayhawk
Fine Chemicals plant in Galena, Kansas. On November 6, 2008, she clocked into work at
8:21 a.m. and began waiting for a required morning meeting with other accounting staff,
scheduled for 8:30. As she was waiting for the meeting to begin, she sat in a conference
chair with rollers, her legs extended and her feet propped up on another conference chair.
She was engrossed in solving a sudoku puzzle while she waited for other employees to
arrive for the meeting.
Before the meeting started and while Ms. Fordham was thus engaged, a fellow
employee, Bill Gordon, came up behind her. Gordon was Ms. Fordham’s friendly rival
in Jayhawk Fine Chemicals’ voluntary Sudoku Singles Club, whose members met at least
twice weekly during coffee breaks and occasionally socialized after hours. Gordon could
see that Ms. Fordham was concentrating on the Sudoku Singles Challenge Puzzle of the
Month. Whoever completed the puzzle first would win a $1,000 prize contributed by
members of the club. To distract her, he playfully took hold of the chair’s back and
pushed it forward, dumping her off the chair and onto the terrazzo tile floor. Ms.
Fordham hit the floor and immediately suffered a low back injury.
Ms. Fordham insists she did nothing whatsoever to provoke Gordon to push the
chair out from under her and dump her on the floor. She did not argue with Gordon
before the incident, and she and Gordon had no feelings of ill will toward one another. In
fact, they were good friends. Before the incident that morning, Ms. Fordham did not
email or converse with Mr. Gordon or communicate with him in any other way. In fact,
she did not even know he was approaching until she found herself sitting on the floor of
the conference room.
As a result of the incident, Ms. Fordham suffered a low back injury. After
medical treatment she was able to return to her accounting position, but her low back
remains symptomatic. To control continuing low back pain, she wears a TENS unit
during waking hours, and she continues to require physical therapy and medical treatment
to monitor her condition. Work disability is not an issue; Ms. Fordham just wants to

2. know whether Jayhawk Fine Chemicals must pay her ongoing medical costs under its
mandatory workers’ compensation coverage.
The facts are not in dispute. After reviewing the legal authorities cited in the
attachment, please write a short office memo addressing the issue of law, using the
appropriate legal terminology. Please limit your research to the cited authorities. Do not
look up any other legal authority or background information. The sole exception is that
you may consult a law dictionary to ensure you understand any unfamiliar terms.
Your memo should follow the standard format for office memoranda discussed in
the Edwards text, including the appropriate headings. Please use 12-point Times New
Roman font and one-inch margins on all four sides, and please double-space your memo.
Your completed memo should be approximately 6-8 pages in length. I will not read past
the end of the eighth page, so be sure you include all required memo components within
that overall page limit.
Your memo, including the Question Presented, Brief Answer, Facts, Discussion,
and Conclusion, is due no later than Wednesday, October 28, at 5:00 p.m. After
incorporating my feedback, the rewrite is due on or before Thursday, November 23, at
5:00 p.m. Your final grade on the memo assignment will be determined by averaging the
grades on the draft and final versions, so your final grade will largely depend on doing
your best possible work on the first version.
In preparing your office memo, please cite all legal authority consistent with the
ALWD citation manual. In addition to correct citation form, you are expected to
demonstrate that you know when to cite authority to support a statement in your memo.
You may discuss the research materials and your analysis with other students in
Sections 13 and 16 who are working on the same closed memo assignment. You may
always consult with me if you have any questions or concerns about your work.
However, you may not discuss the assignment or any of the materials with anyone
else – including other law students, your parents, your lawyer, your roommate, or your
significant other. In addition, you may not show your written work to anyone,
including your classmates in this course.
Writing, revising, editing, and proofreading of your memo must be done by you
alone. Any departure from these requirements will be considered a violation of the
Honor Code and handled accordingly. If you have any questions about whether
particular conduct violates the Code, you are expected to consult with me in advance.