For the last assignment, we return to the “sculpture” case. As in Chapter Two, you are the Assistant U.S. Attorney who filed the Complaint. At this point in the litigation, however, you have satisfied the prerequisite of a Writ of Replevin, and the court has denied Richardson's venue challenge. You have also completed all your discovery, and it turns out that Richardson is unable to dispute any of your facts. In other words, you are now near the end of the litigation, and there is one last step before preparing for trial: You have the option of filing a Rule 56 motion that would ask the court to grant summary judgment in your favor. Your assignment arrives in the form of the following memo:

MEMORANDUM

To: Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney, Civil Division

Fr: Bill Browder, Civil Chief

Re: United States v. Melody Richardson

Great work with “the sculpture case.” You did a wonderful job of using civil discovery to authenticate documents and prove there is no dispute about any of the facts that support our case. I especially like the way you used a Request for Admission in tandem with Interrogatories and Document Requests to pin down the absence of any contrary facts (see attached Defendant's discovery responses). In addition, thanks for telling me about the recent case summarizing the law regarding the use of Requests for Admission to narrow the disputed issues in a civil case. Bouchard v. U.S., 2007 WL 690088 (D. Me. March 6, 2007).