Lee v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance

In this case, we consider whether the trial court erred in holding as a matter of law that the defense of illegality barred the claim for damages of a 13-year-old boy rather than submitting to the jury the issue of the boy’s consent to the illegal act.

Late in the evening of November 1, 1993, 13-year-old Roy James Lee locked his bedroom door and left his house, apparently through his bedroom window. His parents did not know he was gone. Lee went to the home of his friend, William Randall Slate, a high school freshman who was 16 years old. Around 11:00 p.m., Lee called his girlfriend,…