COURSE TITLE

Business Law and Ethics.

COURSE CODE

BUS 3305-01

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

Zalia Israel

UNIT

2
For each of the following scenarios, state whether you believe litigation, ADR, or criminal

prosecution is the appropriate response and explain your answer, citing information from

the textbook as support for your positions.

1. Adele is a secretary for her company. As part of her responsibilities, she can write checks

for the purchase of office supplies. One week, she is short on cash and may not have

enough money to buy groceries for herself and her daughter. She writes a check out to

herself, intending only to do this once and reimburse the account. She never does,

though, and finds herself in a similar situation a few weeks later. This happens several

times and Adele ends up taking a large amount of money from the account. Eventually,

the accounting manager discovers a discrepancy and confronts Adele, who admits to

writing checks to herself.

If this only occurred once, Adele’s case could have been resolved through ADR, but she did

so several times and has turned it to a habit. So, this is a criminal case and the criminal laws

should be used because at this point, it is pretty obvious that it is a deliberate action and she

probably thinks that the company’s funds are her’s now since she has access to it. This is

stealing and she should be addressed with laws pertaining to stealing.

2. Robert has purchased a doll from a large, multinational company for his infant daughter.

His daughter enjoys playing with the toy. However, several weeks after getting the doll,

the Robert's daughter pulls one of the dolls fingers. She puts it in her mouth and

swallows it. The doll's finger blocks her airways. Robert rushes her to the hospital.

Doctor's are able to remove the doll's finger, but not before lack of oxygen causes brain
 damage to Robert's daughter, resulting in extensive medical bills and a heavily impaired

quality of life for the little girl.

This is a very complicated case because it somehow doesn’t involve the company in which

the product was bought. Also, this happened several weeks after purchasing the doll,

however, several in this little detail is not specific enough. Lots of questions needs to be

answered, like in the product detail, how long is this doll supposed to last before falling

apart? What is the warranty for this doll? What is the age group for this doll? Etc. I don’t

think this case should be taken to court, both parties should settle on ADR that would be the

easiest. However, in the case that the product fell apart before the time the company said it

will, the customer can take them to court for a defective product. In the later scenario,

litigation would be the best option because Robert can gain his daughter’s healthcare and

probably some other expenses by suing them. Secondly, this would make the company work

more on their quality control to avoid future problems like that.

3. ABC Company has ordered several thousand light bulbs from XYZ Company. ABC

ordered specialty light bulbs to be used in special heating lamps they produce. These

lamps require 250 watt bulbs, but XYZ sends 150 watt bulbs. The mistake delays the

shipment of several thousand heating lamps, resulting in losses to ABC Company.

This case is quite simple because both parties can either resolve this through ADR or

litigation. It can be resolved through ADR if it was just miscommunication between both

parties. However, if it was a contract and was written down or recorded litigation would be

the perfect solution for that. XYZ should be sued by ABC because of the losses they made

due to the delay, especially when the reason for the delay is not an ‘act of God' like Insurance

companies say.