LAW500- Business Law

Table of Contents

Part 1 – Contract Law Case Studies. 3

Question 1. 3

Question 2. 4

Question 3. 5

Question 4. 6

Question 5. 7

Part 2 – Tort law case studies. 10

Part 1 – Contract Law Case Studies

Question 1

In the case of siblings, it happens that written contracts are not even necessary. Dealing with siblings must not be treated differently compared to dealing with the corporate business. Here there is a case of Dave who is living in Sydney and he has contacted his sister who is a sibling of Dave(Torvik, et al., 2022).

And her sister is Keren and she is living in England. Because a written agreement is needed to ensure that two parties understand the rights and responsibilities, and the property of parents will also be divided equally among children so here also there are two children Dave and her sister Keren, so the property of parents will be distributed among Dave and Sydney (Chazali, 2019).

In this case, the sister and the Dave are falling out. She has resigned from her job and also moved away from her friends, and she also arrived in Sydney when her brother needed him. And then, later on, Dave disinherited her sister and also sold the property, and then the sister sued his brother for doing the same and he said that his brother do the breach of contract (Torvik, et al., 2022).

So, in this case, the brother has to contact her sister and do not do anything wrong, and the Keren has done everything right because if her brother disinherited her sister then she will go to court and she needs the part of the property. So, the Keren has sold her property where she was living earlier in England and she took the decision just because of her brother Dave as he was fallen ill and she has to go to take care of her (Chazali, 2019).

Question 2

Ali’s business went into the liquidation and he has not told anything regarding the financial trouble of the business, and his parents are not well educated and they have no or little knowledge regarding the business of his son. So, he has not told anything regarding the business that what kind of issues he is facing currently, and not able to ensure that his business sounds good. In this case, the parents must hire a lawyer and consult with someone who can provide knowledge that whether they should look into the financial statements of the business before they sign a contract of mortgage because now the parents are in dilemma and they are in trouble that how they should be taken in consideration of their son’s business (Nxumalo, 2019).

So, now the Cheatem Bank is trying to exercise their rights under the guarantee of mortgage and they have sued the parents of Ali because they have signed the contract of mortgage, and their home is at risk when the business is making a loss, and not able to pay loans taken from the bank, then obviously the bank will try to sue Ali’s business and the mortgage is given as the home of Ali’s parents, so the bank will now take the house of his parents, and now his parents are in risk (Poborský, 2015).

So, in this case, now they can consult with a lawyer who will provide them guidance and fight a case for them because Ali’s parents are not well educated and they have little or no knowledge regarding the business of Ali. So the bank can sue Ali’s business and take money from Ali, not from his parents. And the lawyer will try to save the parent’s house because they are innocent. They have little understanding of formal education. Also, the lawyer now can say that Ali has not provided his financial statements which were real because it shows that he is in financial trouble and he does not sound good financially(Poborský, 2015).

Also, it is a mistake of the bank that they have not checked the financial statements of the business before providing a mortgage, so here the bank cannot sue Ali’s parent’s house as they are not well-educated but the bank has proper knowledge so they must verify all the documents earlier and should take in consideration the real documents of the business. Therefore, the business cannot provide wrong information regarding his business documents and provide the right information so that his parents can also be saved and their house as well (Nxumalo, 2019).

Question 3

Brade and jane as they operate the pizza business and they have faced a loss because of Angie. According to the current situation of the brad and Jane, they have to make sure to handle this in a better manner. Angie promise them to deliver their wood-fired oven installed within hours. Therefore they have not been able to get the oven on time and this causes them a loss for this they have to make sure to handle the things. Angie shows her lack of point in the company and her working policy. she did not deliver the oven on time and based on this situation they both have to face the loss in the market. According to this situation and the amount they have faced while late deliveries in the oven and their shop remain shut for 4 days and nights also, this may be causing the huge amount of the loss. They even face a loss of a great deal of money ((Bplans, 2022).

Due to this, they decide to sue Angie for their profit and the loss and this is the right decision for them. They have to take a strict decision regarding this situation and it is because of Angie’s inappropriate behavior. This may cause them a loss and they want to realize Angie for her mistake and her behavior towards her work. According to their decision, the settlement reaches another level as they discuss this matter with Angie. They have to make sure to decide in favor of both parties. Angie will have to pay them 30% of their loss and also, she has to repair the oven free of cost. The charges she takes for them for the repairing is not will be settled (Bplans, 2022).

LAW

According to law and legislation, regulations they have to apply the Fraud act 2006. This is the act that is applied in this situation. They have to make sue her for her deliveries and late deliveries describe the lack point her in the work.

Question 4

Gulliver as went to tour and enjoyed it a lot for the 11 days and after that, the situation has become changed. He wants to sue the bus tour company and wants the full amount of his tour cost. But according to the law and the regulations, this is not a valid point for the company as the basis of the half tour cancelation. The reason behind this Gulliver has to face the troubles after the 11 days of the tour and misses his left day’s tour. Due to this situation, he can not sue the bus tour company for the full amount of the refund because he enjoyed the 11 days a lot. Also, those days’ tour was out of the expectation. Due to this, there is no point in using them for the full amount refund. As the organization provides him the 11 days of the tour and there is no sense in paying back the amount of those tour days. After this, the situation becomes uncomfortable for the Gulliver and he has to back from the middle of the tour and this is not an impression (Avvo Inc. 2022). That bus tour company may represent in front of their customers. This may cause a bad image in the organization and reduce the marketing level of the company in the market.

Law

According to the lawsuit filed the case against the bus tour company. The tour company has to pay for the amount of the injuries that Gulliver have during the time of the bus crash. The reason behind that is the bus company has to pay the bill for all the passenger’s injuries. Therefore Gulliver wants his full amount of the refund from the company which will not be possible because he gets full services for the starting 11 days of the tour. On the other hand, he will take a discount offer for the next trip on the bus tour company (Consumercomplaints, 2022).

Question 5

A ) According to the situation of Amelia and Biggles as they both have the law contract between themselves. This may be causing issues for Amelia as she lost her job and would not be able to pay the money that is due on their loan. Amelia want to pay them all amount of the loan money on time but due to the situation as she lost her job. Also, she would not be able to pay the money on time. Biggles advised her to sell her apple notebook to pay the amount of the loan and the amount that is decided for selling it is $900. After this, she has to pay the extra $220 according to the balance demand.

According to the common law position she should not trust Biggles for paying him first $900 and after that $220. The reason behind this is that she has a total amount of $1,000 and after paying $900 there is only $100 left from the loan amount. Based on this their no need to pay $220 to him without signing any kind of agreement and rules also, regulations (Epstein, 2018).

B) Equitable defense Amelia may have to action by Biggles. This is not an equitable deal for Amelia and it is because she has the only source to find a new job with the help of this laptop. Therefore if she sells it and pays the full amount of the loan according to the contract then there is no need to pay her any other amount to related the loan. Also, she can focus on finding a new job without her laptop. Amelia is facing an issue in this situation and they have to make sure to defend themselves in this action. She may take the extra time till she will get another job to pay the amount of the loan to Biggles. Also, she has to find a better way to resolve this issue. She may ask the extra time to pay back the amount of the loan and this is the situation that is possible in this case.

Question 6

Rosella Ltd is not obliged to sell the plasma television to Tom at the advertised price of $200. Because the advertised price is not considered an offer to enter into a binding contract, it is just simply an invitation to deal with the offer. Also, the price that has been printed wrong is unintentional and it is not printed intentionally or to make harm any person. So, there is no consumer law that Rosella Ltd must honor the advertised price of the product (Kalbfleisch, et al., 2019).

Also, if Rosella Ltd gets a suit against them then they can establish a defense because printing the wrong price in the advertisement for the plasma television was just a mistake for them. Also, the sales assistant has already provided the right information to Tom regarding the price of a product before he has purchased a television. He can say that the price mentioned in the advertisement was a mistake, and the court can allow the retailer and seller to make corrections in the agreement so that the misunderstanding will be ignored (Kirkpatrick, 2020).

According to the Section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law, because it is prohibiting the retailers to deceive consumers to buy a product, Rosella Ltd has not broken any law, and the advertisement of the plasma television was just making an appealing offer to Tom and they can follow the store policy before selling a product, and provide the correct terms and conditions of selling the product to the consumer of the plasma television and ensure that no deceive made to any other consumer with the same mistake because it will decrease the customer base of Rosella Ltd because they are misleading their customers by just printing a low price and saying that it was just a mistake for them (Kirkpatrick, 2020).

Part 2 – Tort law case studies

Question 1

a)the tortious act of causation, is applied in the first case, and out of the two this is negligent causation, which means that “but for” the act of omission or negligence of the defendant, the harm would not have been caused to the plaintiff.

b) there are no tortious acts or the omissions that are applied in this case, since the employee himself is liable for his injury and however the employer is responsible for the injury caused to an employee at the workplace, this case is not regarding the same, here the injury that has been concerned is that o the employee in the hospital, on which there is no liability of the employer.
c) no tortious acts or omissions will be applied in this case of free-falling on the car to police. Since falling of free could be a natural cause, and there are absolutely no linkages that could be established in falling of tree while pursuing the thief by the car. Overall, since there is no duty of care, no breach of duty, there is also no causation present and therefore the thief is not held responsible for the damages caused to the police car by falling free (Deakin & Markesinis, 2019).

a) yes, in the present case, there is the presence of causation since it was because of the accident caused by the second person only, that the growth of the tumor that was only starting started turning into a malignant tumor. It is the second car’s driver’s fault therefore he is to be held responsible for the accident.
b) no, this is not a case of causation since the fracture took place in the hospital, not during the work time, and the fault was of the patient only, therefore the employer is to be not held liable for the injury that was received by the worker in the hospital.

c)no, in this case, causation is not present, because the falling of a tree does not have any link with the thief and it is just a natural cause. There is no such connection betweenthe falling of a tree with theft, trees must have become so old which is why it must have fallen on the car of the police and it has nothing to do with the thief and he must not be held responsible for any damage to the police car (Goldberg et al., 2021).

In the first case, there can be no defense raised by the tortfeasor, since there is the presence of negligence, and causation in the case. There is a duty of care as well as a breach of duty, therefore if the tortfeasor, who is the driver of the second vehicle will raise any defense. It will be rejected and the chances of it being successful are negligible.

In the second as well as a third case, there are 100% chances of the tortfeasor’s raise being a success, in the second case the employer as well as in the third case the thief, both do not have any proven causation or duty of care, for the same reason there is also no breach of duty, hence they cannot be made liable to pay any damages in relation in the following scenarios, thus their defenses for themselves will be successful.

4) the cases that come under tort law, were heard by the district courts, who also determine the civil claim of the amount up to $750000, and have unlimited jurisdiction in any of the cases related to damages claims for personal injuries. Both civil, as well as criminal matters, are dealt within these courts.

Question 2

In the following case jean who is a regular shopper at the east end four corners supermarket, slipped on grapes in the section of pet food and the falling, as well as slipping, caused her to break her ankle. The manager of the store has no idea as to how long the grapes have been there or how did they end up there. In this case study, jean broke her ankle and has been suffering the loss. ‘

The plaintiff, in this case, is – Jean

the defendant here is – a supermarket

as per general tort law, the first element out of the total four is a duty, which is also known as the duty of care. As per the law in the most simple words duty can be referred to as the obligation to either do or not perform something that may cause harm to anyone. the changes in obligations are dependent upon the relationship. As per this duty of care, the supermarket owes a duty of care to any reasonably foreseeable person or anyone present on their premises. Therefore tort law is applied to the supermarket (Rodriguez-Blanco, 2022).

Yes, there is a breach of duty by the supermarket, because once it has been proved that someone owes a duty of care. Another element is a breach, this is when a person or any company has failed in living up to the standard of care that it owes to another. In this case, since the supermarket has the duty of care towards anyone present on its premises and even after having an apt policy, the business failed in providing that care, there has been a breach of duty by the supermarket.

Therefore, Jean has the right against the pursuant of the negligence of the supermarket for her broken ankle. This risk was foreseeable reasonably since the supermarket’s cost of cleaning is fairly low and there has been a breach of duty of care. These damages are the combination of both generals as well as special damages. The general damages are pain and suffering, while special damages include medical bills, loss of income as well as future earnings.

The defendant, in this case, does not have any defenses and as per the law, they are liable to pay the quantum of damages involving the expenses out of pocket, the economic loss for as well as the general damages of pain as well as suffering making a total of $1.3M, as per the discretion of the judge (Pal, 2019).

Question 3

Issue

Has Johnny breached any law in this case?

Law

According to the laws and legislation, a person will not breach his duty to take the protections against the hazards unless:

If the risk is not known by the person or the risk was foreseeable. If the person is not known by the uncertainty, then the person can’t able to take precautions to eliminate or mitigate the risk.
If the risk is not particular then in this case also a person can’t bale to take the precaution to eliminate or mitigate the risk (Barker, et al., 2012).

As per the legislation and law, the court will decide whether the reasonable person taking precautions against the hazards or not. There are some statements that the court will take into consideration while making the decisions such as –

The court needs to be considered the possibility of hazards will happen or occur if appropriate precautions were not taken by the reasonable person.
The court needs to be considered the seriousness of the risk or the impacts of the risk.
The court must consider the burden of the reasonable person to protect his car from the uncertainty or natural disaster that occurred.

Application

Johnny is the owner of the car garage or the premises and he can’t damage Lan’s car. The car has been damaged due to natural disasters or hail storms. Johnny doesn’t know about the disaster or uncertainty that happen near their premises. According to the laws and legislation, the risk or uncertainty is not particular for anyone so the reasonable person also does not take any precautions to protect his car from the uncertainty. There are some statements that the court and legal entities must take into consideration while deciding on this case such as

Johnny does not know the risk or uncertainty that occurs near his premises.
The risk of a hail storm is not particularly due to this reason johnny or a reasonable person can’t able to take precautions to protect the car from uncertainty (Barker, et al., 2012).
The court also needs to be considered the burden on Lan to protect his car from the uncertainty or natural disaster that occurred near its premises of the Johnny.
The court also needs to consider that the car is not parked in the garage of the johnny. It has been parked away from the garage (Luntz, et al., 2017).

Conclusion

According to the eye of the law, Johnny has not breached any law. So, the compensation for the damaged car which is $25000 will be bear by the owner of the car. The reason that the court makes these decisions is that the risk is uncertain and it can happen anytime and anywhere. The seriousness of the risk or hazards is also high due to which Johnny and reasonable can able to take precautions to protect the car from uncertainty or natural disaster. According to the laws, a person can’t able to bear the loss of this type of risk whether he is the owner of the premises or not.

Question 4

Negligence

Negligence is a very important part of tort law. It occurs when the person does a crime due to carelessness or being responsible for the harm caused due to their own mistake. There are four components of the negligence that prove that person is responsible for the compensation or not such as

Duty – The first component of negligence explains the duty of care of the person due to which risks occurred. In other words, a person is responsible for giving compensation to another person if he is responsible for the harm. But if a person is not responsible for the harm of another person, then according to the tort law a person does not pay any compensation to another person. This is element is not applied in the given case of Sam and Polly (Luntz, et al., 2017).
Breach – Once a plaintiff proves that another person is owned the duty of care of the plaintiff. It means the person is responsible for the pay the compensation against damages or injury to the plaintiff in the eye of law. If the plaintiff fails to prove that another person is owned the duty of care to the plaintiff then in this case person is not responsible for paying the compensation to the plaintiff. This is element is not applied in the given case of Sam and Polly (Lunney, 2017).
Causation – Two types of causation are actual causation and proximate causation. Actual causation is the cause that another party directly harm the plaintiff. So, in this case, another party must pay the compensation to the plaintiff. Proximate causation is the cause that another party indirectly harm or without any plan to the plaintiff. So, in this case, another party is not paying any compensation to the plaintiff. The given case comes under the proximate causation. So, Sam does not need to pay any compensation for the injury to Polly.
Harm – The given case comes under the case of proximate causation. As we know that in the case of proximate causation another person does not pay any compensation to the plaintiff. Therefore, in the given case Sam is not paying any compensation to Polly in the eye of the law (Lunney, 2017).

Conclusion

Since there is no duty of care arising in this case, the defendant Sam is also not liable to take care of the plaintiff Polly, it is for the same reason that no breach of duty has to arise in this case, since there is no breach there is no causation, hence the defendant is not liable to pay any charges to Polly, she asked for a lift from her free will and was liable for her responsibility, besides Sam was driving as per the rules and regulations within the speed limit, thus he is well within his limits and is not expected to pay anything.

References

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Barker, K., Cane, P., Lunney, M., & Trindade, F. (2012). The Law of Torts in Australia. Oxford University Press. https://rune.une.edu.au/web/handle/1959.11/12370

Bplans.com (2022) Bus tour company cases in Australia. {Online}. Available at: Sightseeing Bus Tours Business Plan Template for 2022 — Bplans

Chazali, C., 2019. the Intergenerational Dimensions of Land Transfer Among Smallholder Farm Households in Indonesia. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/51406/Chazali-Charina_MA_2018_19_SPD.pdf

Consumercomplaints.com (2022) improper services behavior in Australia. (online). Available at: Improper Services | Consumer Complaints Court

Deakin, S. and Markesinis, B., 2019. Markesinis and Deakin’s tort law. Oxford University Press, USA. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-pCqDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=what+is+tort+law+&ots=vA_dBFsYme&sig=KqshgfwMCEblCGhQDZcjRiuSxkY&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20tort%20law&f=false

Epstein, R.A., 2018. A Common Law for the First Amendment. Harv. JL & Pub. Pol’y, 41, p.1. The Myth of Common Law Crimes (unc.edu)

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Goldberg, J.C., Sebok, A.J., Zipursky, B.C. and Kendrick, M., 2021. Tort law: Responsibilities and redress. Wolters Kluwer. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=U9UeEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=what+is+tort+law+&ots=bHmac6cAOT&sig=gJwVysVWTE3iAI3Hb0wq90MRBJ4&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20tort%20law&f=false

Kalbfleisch, P.J. and Docan-Morgan, T., 2019. Defining truthfulness, deception, and related concepts. In The palgrave handbook of deceptive communication (pp. 29-39). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://sci-hub.ee/10.1007/978-3-319-96334-1_2

Kirkpatrick, K., 2020. Deceiving the masses on social media. Communications of the ACM, 63(5), pp.33-35. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3386375?casa_token=keoEfFv4oJIAAAAA:Ds–WC86OiG3EXq23XBWQqLuWOZF-o-sOZfCktcsJ_FhvUklFHTPDF2yc1EHJdZ6WBH6-tQfUw8g

Ling, L., Dong, Y., Guo, X. and Liang, L., 2015. Availability management of hotel rooms under cooperation with online travel agencies. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 50, pp.145-152. Availability management of hotel rooms under cooperation with online travel agencies (researchgate.net)

Lunney, M. (2017). A History of Australian Tort Law 1901-1945. Cambridge University Press. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LZNADwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR10&dq=tort+law+reform+in+australia&ots=o8x9FnS-MK&sig=uzY504A8wEFmwq6IJWqO_0v6fFc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=tort%20law%20reform%20in%20australia&f=false

Luntz, H., Hambly, D., Burns, K., Dietrich, J., Foster, N., Harder, S., & Grant, G. (2017). Torts: cases and commentary. LexisNexis Butterworths. https://research.bond.edu.au/en/publications/torts-cases-and-commentary-2

Nxumalo, M.M., 2019. Business rescue: a delay tactic for liquidation? (Doctoral dissertation). https://ukzn-dspace.ukzn.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10413/18448/Nxumalo_Misiwe_Mpilenhle_2019.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Pal, M., 2019. Economic Analysis of Tort Law: The Negligence Determination. Taylor & Francis. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=y6KsDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT10&dq=tort+law+negligence&ots=KZn31aE_ou&sig=Prd1-Xuvz9v0ld8eIoRuKZYyXxs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=tort%20law%20negligence&f=false

Poborský, F., 2015. Fundamentals of the Liquidation Method of Business Valuation. Procedia Economics and Finance, 25, pp.386-393.https://doi.org/10.1016/S2212-5671(15)00749-2

Rodriguez-Blanco, V., 2022. The Law of Negligence, Blameworthy Action, and the Relationality Thesis: A Dilemma for Goldberg and Zipursky’s Civil Recourse Theory of Tort Law. Law and Philosophy, 41(1), pp.63-82. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10982-021-09430-w

Torvik, F.A., Eilertsen, E.M., Hannigan, L.J., Cheesman, R., Howe, L.J., Magnus, P., Reichborn-Kjennerud, T., Andreassen, O.A., Njølstad, P.R., Havdahl, A. and Ystrom, E., 2022. Modeling assortative mating and genetic similarities between partners, siblings, and in-laws. Nature communications, 13(1), pp.1-10.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28774-y