InstructionsProject - Legal and Ethical Scenarios This assignment is a continuation of the project started in Week 3. Read the scenarios and the questions that follow. Select any four (4) scenarios

InstructionsProject - Legal and Ethical Scenarios

This assignment is a continuation of the project started in Week 3.  Read the scenarios and the questions that follow.  Select any four (4) scenarios and the recommendations section.  Identify and analyze the legal issue(s).  Apply legal concepts and make potential arguments as directed using laws, cases, examples, and/or other relevant materials.  Consider using short headings (consult APA materials) to separate the topics.  Summarize the facts; do not copy the scenarios into the paper.  Support your answers with information from the textbook and at least five scholarly sources other than the text and course lectures.  By the due date assigned, prepare a 5 to 8 page paper that identifies the legal issues and potential solutions and answers all questions presented, supported by relevant legal authority.  Do not exceed the page length by more than two pages

Overview

Headquartered in Bristol, Tennessee, [Restaurant Name] operates two pizza restaurants, one in Bristol, Tennessee and one is Bristol Virginia.  Approximately 35% of the employees work full time; however, [Restaurant Name] primarily hires part-time employees as pizza makers, delivery drivers, and order takers.  The owners, Ashton Brown and Miranda Connor, seek your advice on the following legal and ethical issues.

  Scenario 1 - Agents and Insurance

Mitch, an employee of [Restaurant Name] was cleaning up a table when a customer used a racial slur while talking about some of his co-workers.  Mitch wheeled around and punched the customer in the mouth, breaking the customer’s nose and several teeth.

• Discuss the potential liability for [Restaurant Name]
• Evaluate the types of insurance that may be involved and the types [Restaurant Name] should have.

Scenario 2 – Agents, Employees, Liability and Insurance

Drew, the manager, was allowed to drive the company delivery vehicle to and from work because he was responsible for sales, advertising, participating in community events and on occasion, picking up supplies.  Taking the car home allowed Drew to go directly to the various events without wasting time and gas to pick up the car each day.  Additionally, the car was wrapped in the company’s logo, which provided opportunities for free advertising.

Drew stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items while on his way home.  When pulling out of the parking lot, Drew was involved in a collision with Hanh Nguyen.  Nguyen’s vehicle was totaled and she missed one week of work recovering from her injuries.  Nguyen sued Drew, [Restaurant Name] and State Farm, [Restaurant Name’s] automobile insurance carrier.  Drew suffered a broken arm, collapsed lung and a compound fracture in his left leg.  Drew missed two months of work.

• Discuss the arguments each party (Drew, [Restaurant Name and Nguyen) will make related to liability in the accident.  Decide which party or parties should be liable and provide support for your choice.

Scenario 3 – Discrimination

Although Ashton, one of the owners, considers himself an equal opportunity employer, he refuses to hire anyone who is not a heterosexual male or female based on his religious beliefs.  Ellis, a 40-year-old woman with 5 years of experience in managing pizza restaurants applied for the position of assistant manager.  Ashton hired Susan who only had two years of waitressing in a restaurant and no management experience.  Ellis felt that she was discriminated against because she was a lesbian.

• Determine the bases Ellis has for a lawsuit against Ashton and the restaurant.  Present the arguments for both parties and select the most probable outcome.  Use both state and Federal laws to address at least two theories of discrimination.

Scenario 4 – Bailments

Because Miranda often worked 12 to 14 hour days in the summer, she took her Chihuahua, Rambo, to doggie daycare.  Miranda completed all of the forms and signed the authorizations without reading them.  One day when Rambo was at daycare, he became covered in mud after running around with a husky on the playground.  When the groomers gave Rambo a bath, he collapsed and died.

• Using principles of bailment, determine whether Miranda could recover damages from the doggie daycare for Rambo’s death.

Scenario 5 – Property, Leases and Liability

[Restaurant Name] leases one of their buildings from Davenport Commercial Properties (DCP).  Ashton noticed that the stair railings leading up the walk to the restaurant wobbled and appeared unsteady.  Ashton hammered a nail in each side to secure the railing.  When the railing continued to wobble, Ashton called Dale at DCP to repair it.  Dale came to fix the railing on Ashton’s day off.  Dale replaced the nails with screws.  Several days later, a plus-size customer grasped the railing while climbing the stairs.  The railing came loose causing the customer to lose his balance and fall down the steps.  The customer suffered a broken hip and spent two weeks in the hospital and three weeks in a rehabilitation center.  The customer sued Dale, DCP and [Restaurant Name] to recover his medical expenses, damages for emotional distress and pain and suffering.

• Evaluate and describe the arguments for the three parties named in the lawsuit.  Determine which party should win.  Explain your selection and support your answer with relevant scholarly sources.

Scenario 6 -  Physical Access and Public Accommodation

Customers have an option to place orders for pizza by phone or through the [Restaurant Name] website.  The website does not contain features that allow a blind person full access, such as the ability to order online.  The National Organization for the Blind filed suit on behalf of a group of blind individuals who were not able to order their favorite pizza online.

• Evaluate the basis on which lawsuits might be filed on behalf of blind individuals and propose a potential outcome supported by cases or scholarly sources.

Scenario 7 – Employment Privacy

Ashton and Miranda included a statement in the employee handbook prohibiting employees from discussing [Restaurant Name] on social media and other websites.  Ashton and Miranda also use Facebook and other social media sites to check up on current employees and screen applicants before interviewing them.  

• Evaluate and explain the legal and ethical issues of prohibiting employees from discussing work on social media.
• Discuss legal and ethical issues related to using social media in hiring decisions.
• Provide references to at least two scholarly sources in your response.

Recommendations

Conclude your paper by justifying suggestions for [Restaurant Name] to help prevent future occurrences of these types of legal problems.  Identify any ethical issues you find and present recommendations as  applicable. Be specific in your recommendations.

• Use APA format for the paper. Review the APA materials located in the Library Research Guide.

Template for paper

Legal and Ethical Scenarios

John Q. Student

South University

BUS3055: Business Law for Commercial Transactions

Professor (or Dr.) First Name Last Name

Date

Legal and Ethical Scenarios

            Start your first paragraph here.  The introduction should contain five or six sentences.

Although the introduction does not contain all details, it should provide an overall outline of the subtopics you will cover in your paper.  The introductory paragraph should give the reader a good understanding of what they will learn from your paper. The best way to use this template is to read through the entire document first.  Delete each section as you fill it in with your own content. This template is formatted to meet APA’s requirements of 12 pt font and double spacing between the lines. When you delete the sections one at a time, you will see that your work is formatted properly.  Select four scenarios. If you are repeating the class, select the scenarios you did not submit the first time. 

Scenario 2: Insurance and Agency

This paragraph covers your selection of one scenario.  Chapters 35, 36 and 37 in the textbook will help get you started on this question (Twomey et al., 2017).  Do not repeat the scenario.   There are four parties involved in this lawsuit, so present supported arguments for each one.

More than one paragraph may be needed for some scenarios, so this scenario used two paragraphs as an example. Do not use long block paragraphs.  For example, one paragraph might take up a one-third of a page but not a whole page.  More than one paragraph is needed for this scenario.  

Scenario 3: Employment Discrimination

            Address the next scenario selected in this paragraph.  The title of the scenario points to Chapters 38 and 39 (Twomey et al., 2017).   Be careful to not make a quick decision about the answer.  Argue for both sides. Check the footnotes.  For this specific question, you may find several footnotes that contain names of cases.  Take the names of the cases and conduct a search on the Internet.  There may be information in those cases that can be used as support for the answer to the question.  You must read the case to find the information that applies.  Not all cases will be related to the scenario.  The original case may include references to other cases that might be better suited to the current scenario.  The answer to this scenario requires more than one paragraph.

Scenario 6: Physical Access and Public Accommodation

The next scenario you selected will be answered here.  Chapter 39 of the textbook will get you started on this question; however, research outside of the textbook will be necessary to fully answer this question (Twomey et al., 2017).   A search using key terms such as disability, public and accommodation may help, especially when searching for articles and cases.

Scenario 7: Employment Privacy

            The last scenario starts here. Chapter 38 in the textbook will get you started; however, additional research is necessary because the guidelines and outcomes of lawsuits are changing as the law grows in this area (Twomey et al., 2017).   The National Labor Relations Board is a great place to look for guidelines and recent cases involving employer regulation of employee use of social media.

Recommendations

The recommendations section serves as a conclusion for this paper.  This section is important and worth 25 points.  Provide recommendations to address the legal and ethical issues identified in the four scenarios.  Review the rubric to ensure the paper addresses each element.  Check formatting, spelling, word use and citations before submitting to the dropbox.  Within 5 to 10 minutes of submission, a Turnitin score will be posted.  Log back into the dropbox, click on the score and review. Turnitin does not catch all problems, but it will alert you to some text that may not be properly cited or not identified with quotation marks.    Revisions and resubmissions are allowed until 11:59 pm MT on the day the assignment is due unless your instructor allows additional time. 

References

Below are examples to help you with formatting your references.  Be sure to delete these examples before submitting your paper. 

Lastname, A. A., & Lastname, B. B. (Year of Publication). Title of article. Title of Periodical,

Volume(Issue), page numbers. DOI

Lastname, A. A. (Year, Month Date). Title of article. Title of Publication. URL

Lastname, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher

Name.

Twomey, D. P., Jennings, M. M., Greene, S. M. (2017). Anderson’s business law and the legal

environment, comprehensive volume (23rd ed.). South Western Cengage Learning.