Business Law

Posted: August 7th, 2013

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Business Law

Question one

Negligence is one of the most common types of tort liability in an organization. Negligence is considered careless and unreasonable behavior and it includes accidents, malpractice and personal injury cases. When one of the employees breaches his duty to the company, he is perceives to be negligent, and negligence is a tort. Employees have fiduciary duties towards their employers and the good of the organization. In this case, negligence tort would be committed if the employee administered merchandise to the wrong suppliers and without authorization. This is considered negligence because the employee did not regard organizational authority before executing an action thereby causing irreversible loss to the organization. The legal principles that apply to negligence tort include lawsuits. In this case, the employee would be found guilty of tort of negligence after sufficient evidence of the crime is presented before a judge. The plaintiff, the organization, would have to prove that the employee breached his duty.

Question two

Intentional tort is a lawsuit in which a plaintiff charges a defendant with committing a deliberate, aggressive act such as assault, battery, false imprisonment, invasion of privacy and defamation. For instance, if an employee physically assaults one of the clients for failing to deliver goods on time, he or she is liable for a lawsuit. This lawsuit would damage the reputation of the company and consequentially prove costly. Intentional torts can sometimes be beneficial to the company if we are the plaintiffs but not defendants. Unintentional tort results in an injury or loss and involves allegations of negligence. For example, when the company driver stops on the highway to fix the company car, and another driver hits his car. If the driver of the second car sues the company driver, his guilt or innocence would depend on whether the jury believes his actions were reasonable. Unintentional torts might not have negative effects on the company especially if the said driver did not commit the actions intentionally. If he were found guilty of negligence, the company would have to compensate the plaintiff, which might be costly. In addition, the employee would lose his job.

Question three

Coca cola is one of the most preferred beverages in the world. Product liability issues that arise for coca cola include injuries caused by defective merchandise. Customers have a cause of action against the manufacturers of coca cola if they are harmed by the beverage. The accusations against the coca cola company might be based on negligence, breach of warranty, misrepresentation and strict tort liability. Liability claims and lawsuits might tarnish the reputation of the company. There were recent allegations linking coca cola products to cancer. These claims threatened the company popularity amongst its loyal customers and sales significantly reduced out of fear of developing cancerous cells.

The management can apply sound risk management techniques in the supply chain and track the performance of their products in order to establish after sale problems. This will enable them to take affirmative and corrective actions against these problems. Moreover, the management should ensure that the personnel adhere to the safety regulations to make the product as harmless as possible. In rare circumstances, if the product has any dangers, it is the responsibility of the management to warn the users and buyers of the existing dangers beforehand. These measures will guarantee a reduction in legal risk involving the product.