Business 2#

Golden Rule

treat others the way you want to be treated

who is Todd Packer

Makes inappropriate sexual jokes, touching and grouping

Professors view of the golden rule

Only treat you the way you want to be treated if you know something about that person

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Others may want different things in a situation

Title VII (7) of the Civil rights act of 1964

workplace discrimination

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This affects private companies discriminating against/mistreating employees

Bostock v Clayton Country ruling

An employer who fires an individual employee merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Neil Gorsuch

The logic he used says in the law you cannot discriminate based on sex

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If you get a sex change the only thing that changes is your gender

Religion discrimination

Religious organizations can discriminate based on religion 

If you have a claim against someone what do you do

you file a lawsuit

Where do you go to file a compliant for workplace discrimination

Equal employment opportunity Commission (EEOC)

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if EEoC does not find an issue you can appeal it and go to federal court

Disparate Treatment (intentional Discrimination)

Need to have good evidence that you are now being hired because you are a women

Circumstantial Evidence

You do not see it is raining outside but a person comes in wet with an umbrella

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All the women with really good resumes did not get hired

All the employees at a firm are men

Disparate impact

unintentional discriminatory practice

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hiring more men then women as construction workers as a result of physical height or strength

Sexual Harassment

Sexual Harassment is intentional

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Most of the time is is women being harassed by men

Quid Pro quo

a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something else

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The boss says if you sleep with me you get a raise

Hostile Environment

Inappropriate touching

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Staring at an employee

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Todd Packer

Business are held liable for hostile environments

If people in the company are harassing each other the company is liable like the person

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Companies are required to make a safe place

Special Defense for business in hostile environment

• No tangible job detriment submission to sexual advance does not preclude determine

• Company policy with clear procedures

• The employee did not use procedures (can wait a while)

Okoli V. City of Baltimore

* An employer in the city of Baltimore hired a woman named Okli was exposed to sexual harassment

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She went to the mayor of the city and the mayor wrote back to her boss and Okli was fired

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Fired for standing up with herself

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The court found significant issues of harassment that could meet the requirements for all three tests under the law.

Employees

• Work under a manager in the direction of a company

• Salary or hourly wage

• Get better liability coverage

• Get taxes paid through the company

Independent contractor

• Paid through a contract

• Do not work as an employee

• Uber, door dash

• The company doesn’t have to take on liability

• Do not have to pay employee taxes

Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

Get to take three months off

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Do not get paid

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However, does not get job security

Tort

• Any wrong excluding breaches of contract and crimes

• Any non-contractual civil wrong committed upon the person or property

Elements=requirements

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Elements equal things that are required to be shown

Compensatory damages

Money awarded in a court case to a plaintiff to compensate for damages or other incurred losses

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You lost someone's computer that was 1,000 dollars you then have to pay 1,000 dollars

Punitive damages

Individuals can be ordered to pay punitive damages that injure somone else to due negligent behavior

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Punitive=punihsments

Intentional torts

Require intent

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you push someone becasue they called you a name

Negilgence

negligence=accidents

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A person sneezes when driving a car

Negligence Example

diving 35 in a 30 zone and hitting someone's car

Recklessness or gross Negligence

Driving 170 in a 30 zone and hitting someone

Employer Liability

• The company is liable If the employee is acting in the scope of employment

• A person is serving drinks and trips can sue the person and the company

Tort time window

• You only have a 2-year window to bring up a case

• Statute of limitations

Difference between DUI and DWI

• Depends on the jurisdiction

• Depends on where it is taking place

• They mean different things in different states

Assault

the threat or fear of injury or harm

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attempt to kill or murder

gun pointed at someone

poisoning

Battery

physical completion of the threat

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hitting or kicking somone

Boxing

• You can’t sue for assault because it is a sport and they both have consent

• Can sue if the boxer is down and the other guy gets throwing punches

• Reasonable for self-defense

• Respondent in a reasonable manner

If someone walks up to you try and fight and the other guy is huge and can really hurt them

If a young girl tries to fight and doesn’t have a weapon

Defamation

• Lying with the intent to harm someone's reputation

• Can't be defamation if they are telling the truth

• It has to be a lie

Fox news defamation case

Dominion voting system claimed that fox news was intentionally lying about their product

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Have text messages admitting they know what they are talking about it is a lie

Defamation cases and celebrities

• Are harder for celebrities to win than normal people

• If a celebrity called for a press conference many people would show up

• Celebrities have a large following means they have a way to defend themselves

• Part of being in the public eye and celebrities is that people will talk smack about you

False Imprisonment

• Intentionally confined or restrained the plaintiff without the plaintiff's consent

• Loss of time and loss of money

• Does not have to be injured

• Can have False imprisonment in an open field: holding a gun to someone threatening to kill them if they try to leave

False Imprisonment Walmart Case

• False Imprisonment

• Walmart makes a person take his clothing off

• Has a bandage from a surgical wound

• Walmart said that this man was stealing stuff by putting it in his clothes and surgical wound

• Judge said this was wrong

**Battery**

**Assault** 

**False imprisonment**

**Defamation**

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What do you need for these torts

Intent

**Four Elements of Negligence, need all four of them**

• Duty

• Breach

• Causation

• Damages

**General Rule of duty**

We each owe a duty to each person who we can reasonably foresee might be injured by our carelessness

**Otis Engineering Corp v. Clark**

A car accident where an employee died involving an Otis employee

• The guy who works at an engineering company and was drunk on the job

• Coworkers tell the bus that he is too drunk and that he can’t operate heavy machinery

• His boss sends him home

• The guy ends up driving home

• He ends up killing two women that are sister

• File a lawsuit against the drunk driver

• THE BOSS HAD AN OBLIGATION TO ACT REASONABLY

**Employer Liability**

The company is responsible for the actions of its employees so long as the employees is acting within the scope of employment

**Pizza Hut employs Matt to deliver Pizzas**

• While on delivery Matt t-bones Jose

• Jose sues Matt AND pizza hut

**Waitress at Olive Garden delivering food**

• The waitress is about to set the food down and knocks over a wine glass

• The wine class cuts the customer

• The customer can sue the waitress and olive garden because serving drinks is part of her job

**The waitress at the olive garden is waiting for drinks and sees their girlfriends talking with their ex**

• The ex starts talking to the waitress in a bad manner

• Waitress the throws a beer and slips hitting another person's windshield

• A person whose windshield was broken can sue the waitress but NOT Olive Garden

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**Factual Causation**

connect the dots

This thing factually led to this thing

**Legal Causation**

Was it reasonably foreseeable?

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That this action could lead to this kind of injury or this kind of harm reasonably foreseeable

**Pauls Train Case**

• Women were trying to get on a train

• Employees pushed the women on the train

• Women drop some fireworks and injuries another woman

• A luggage scale falls off from the explosion injuring the lady

• Lady is injured and sues the train company

• Factual causation applies

Legal Causation

Employees push the woman and she twists her ankle

Legal Causation Example

• Harshal is driving and hits a light pole

• The light pole falls down on the road

• A police officer is there and checks on him everything okay

• Another woman comes and wants to come through police officer won’t let her through

• Her phone is dead

• She gets there and her boyfriend is mad she is late and didn’t call, he moves to Seattle

• She is sad

• Later She drives to Seattle

• They make up and know she is moving in together

• She then is driving to the airport when a raccoon comes and she swerves into a ditch

• Now she wants to sue Harshal for her broken ankle

• Factual Causation

• NOT LEGAL CAUSATION

Not Legal Causation Example

• The baby has syphilis

• Baby test positive for syphilis

• Mom tested negative for syphilis

• Dad has been with other women

• This leads to fighting between mom and dad

• Mom is a police officer and fires a gun at dad

• She misses and he files a lawsuit against her

• She is fired from being a police officer

• Turns out the baby did not have syphilis in the first place

• Mom sues the hospital for losing her job as a police officer

• The hospital has a false positive for the baby

• FACTUAL CAUSATION

• NOT LEGAL CAUSATION

Legal Causation Example

**The baby gets tested for syphilis and is positive**

**Legal Causation**

**INDEPENDENT INTERVENING CAUSE**

• Something that is out of the left field

• Cause that emanates from a third party or source to disrupt the causal connection between the defendant’s careless act and the plaintiff’s injury

• Light strike

**Katko v Briney**

• Difference between protecting yourself and protecting your property

• Not in self-defense

• Protecting his property

• Said the gun was aimed down at the legs

• Its possible children could come in and since they are shorter it could have possibly killed them

• Cannot take lethal action just to protect property

• The Property owner loses

• The property owner's one regret was that he wished he would have aimed the gun higher

**Contracts**

Two most important things

• What can you put in a contract

• What is negotiable in a contract

**What can you put in a contract?**

Virtually Anything

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What is negotiable in a contract

Virtually Everything

What is a contract

• A legally enforceable agreement

• A counteract is a promise for the breach of which the law gives a remedy or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes as a duty

• Don't have to write a counteract for it to be valid

• Can have an oral contract

• The witness is important in validating a contract (my word against yours)

Negations

People are negotiating and when a person accepts the deal and says yes it is a contract

For a valid contract, you need

• Offer

• Acceptance

• Consideration (bargained for exchange) - each person gets something

• Meeting of the minds

• BE CAREful HE WILL TAKE OUT ONE AND TRICK YOU ON THE EXAM

Meeting of the minds

• People that don’t have awareness

• A 4-year-old saying yes to buying headphones - they are a minor

• A person that is drink drunk

**Bilateral contract**

• Promise in exchange for another promise

• I promise to pay you $1,000,000 if you promise to stare in my new documentary movie: Kids is their reputation deserved

**Unilateral Contract**

• Promise in exchange for doing an act

• Reward $1,000 if you find my lost purse

**Lebron James Bilateral Contract**

The owner of the lakers offer to pay Lebron 30 million to play for the lakers next year

**MVP incentive clause**

• Unilateral Contract

• Can’t promise to win MVP

**Express contract**

• Where each side is communicating to the other what they want

• Trying to buy a hat without saying a word

**Implied contacts**

• Implied under the circumstances

• A haircut

• Implied you are going to pay once the cut is finished

**Quasi Contracts**

• Exceptional circumstances

• Almost a contract

**Quasi Contracts Example**

• The wind blows a flower pot over and hits her in the head

• The person is out of code and a doctor comes to her aid

• Send her to a hospital and she has a concussion

• The doctor is created for saving her life

• A person is billed for the doctor for $200 dollars

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• This is meeting missing of the minds

• Missing acceptances

• How can you accept when you are unconscious

• Does the person have to pay the doctor

• She does this under the notion of Quasi Contracts

**Most contract law falls under**

common law

**A void contract and a voidable contract are**

**NOT the same things**

**Void contract**

• Where the nature of the contract is illegal

• One of the parties has been declared legally insane

**Voidable contract**

• You sell your car to a 16-year-old person who you thought was a 60-year-old man - Mom could say the deal is okay

• You sell your computer to a drunk person - a drunk person could say it is okay and got a good deal

• They have a choice to accept the deal or not

**Unenforceable contract**

• A person dies

• A person is going to sing at a wedding and dies

**Adhesion contracts**

• Take it or leave it

• Buying an iPhone, they aren't going to negotiate

• Apartment leases

• UNLESS the adhesion contract is shockingly one-sided (unconscionable)

• Unconscionable - incredibly uneven, something very very very unfair

• Very few contracts are perfectly even

**Statute of Frauds**

• Contracts don't need to be in writing to be valid

• However, some contracts do need to be in writing

• If you are going to sell land has to be in writing

• Involves selling a good over $500 dollars has to be in writing

Requirements for an offer

• Party intended to be in a contract

• Each side knows what they have to do

• Communicate the offer to another side

Not an offer

• Dickering - negotiation - fishing

• You go to a Honda dealership to buy a car

• Someone offers 25 for 30 dollar car

• Negotiation is not the same thing as an offer

Leonard v. Pepsico

• There is a joke

• The person says ill give you a million dollars if you run to that light pole and back

• Courts recognize a joke

• Pepsico puts an ad out for pepsi points

• In the ad, they say if you get enough points you can get a jet that is worth 7 million when he spent 700,000 to get the points

• Getting the jet was a joke in the ad saying if you get enough points you can get the jet

• He did not get the jet

• Professor Q said that is was a joke

**Advertisements**

• Advertisements are not generally held to be offers

• Buy on get on half off until next week

• You don’t have to make good on advertisement offers

• Can just stop offering the deal if they wanted

• Gap jeans are 50% off

• What if you walk into the gap with 100 people - 100 people get sued by Gap

• Merchandisers cannot exactly predict

• If says while supplies last

• Gap sill has to sell jeans that don’t even fit them since they said while supplies last

• Have to make good on that offer

• This does not work for businesses acting in bad faith

• Made the advertisement without not intent to do the deal

Someone says come help me for 500 dollars and you say yes

This is not a valid offer because the person does not know what they are doing

**Termination**

• The offer is terminated when there is a rejection

• Someone offers 200 dollars for a water bottle and the other person says no

• A person said for 200 and then says no nevermind

• They never said yes to the offer

• Made an offer and say they'll think about it

• An offer on a sofa - about a month 3 to 4 weeks

• Wanting to buy ice cream but it has melted - a reasonable amount of time

• Make an offer then a counteroffer

• Want this bottle for 90 - how about 30

• Counteroffer means a termination of the previous offer

**Consideration**

• WHAT IS NOT CONSIDERATION - giving someone a phone and saying nope changed my mind - it's their phone they don’t have to get it to you

• The gift is not legally enforceable

• Giving a pillow with a bow and their name on it - the moment you hand them the pillow you can’t take it back

Would be Axe murdering wife

What is an engagement ring?

• In the middle

• A conditional gift

• Law says that you have to give the ring back if they don’t get married

• The ring was given at the completion of the marriage

Mike and Jessica have been dating for 5 years

• They are on vacation and Mike is going to propose on CHRISTMAS

• Mike offers to mary Jessica and then two weeks later Jessica breaks it off because she is in love with his brother

• Who should get the ring

• If it is determined to be a CHRISTMAS GIFT Jessica does not have to give it back

**Promissory estoppel**

• Jessica is rich

• Jessica gives Margaret 200,000 dollars to start a business in fly fishing

• Margaret fly to Denver to line up contracts

• Margret now has 50,000 in contracts

• Jessica called her and said that Margaret was involved with her ex

• Jessica does not want to give her the money anymore

• Did Margret rely on her promise to the detergent

• Did Margret rely on Jessica’s promise

**Unconscionable Contracts**

• The court is not going to undo an unfair contract

• The court is only going to step in if it's unconscionable

• Sold a 1,000,000 house but only got 600,000

• Get a better realtor

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**Exculpatory Clauses**

• You can’t hold me liable for being negligent

• Signing a contract when whitewater rafting

• Cannot sue if you get hurt or die

• Cannot sue even if the company has negligence

• Doesn't apply if reckless or intentional

• If the tour guide is dunk

• Doesn’t apply if you need a lease, someplace to live

• Lease or utility contract

**Voidable contracts**

**Lack of capacity**

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**Lack of consent**

**Lack of capacity**

• Capacity means the legal ability to perform a particular activity such as making a valid contract

• One of the parties is a minor

• Exceptions: young kids needing to ride public transportation or buy milk at the store

Mentally Impaired and Intoxication

• All timers

• Don't know what they are doing

• Doesn't know right from wrong

**Lack of consent**

Consent not genuine

**Fraud**

Basically tricking people into a contract; lying; being deceitful

What is not fraud

• Silence is not a form of fraud

• Opinion statements typically not fraud

**Mutual Mistake**

• The general principle that a contract can be set aside if there is a mutual mistake as to th existence of the identity

• Three Amigos

• A Bugs life

**Unilateral Mistake**

• Where only one party to the contract is mistaken about a material fact rescission

• When one side makes a mistake

• Someone types in 74 million but types in 47 million