The Legal Environment of Business - Case Study Example

The paper "The Legal Environment of Business" is a good example of a case study on business. Ishmael, in this case, wishes to delegate the duties of his contract to his brother, who also works in the industry, and thus understands different functions and operations. This would allow Ishmael to be able to dedicate all his time to the other corporation while his brother focuses on ExportCo. It would seem that Ishmael is free to pursue this angle and Export Co could accept the services of his brother on his behalf. This is because the contract that Ishmael signed with the company did not contain any antidelegation clause. As Ishmael will have to dedicate almost all his waking hours to his other company, he will not have even a small amount of time to cater to the interests of ExportCo. This means that he cannot assign his brother, who is to function as his substitute, random tasks from his portfolio. He has to turn over his entire arsenal of work for ExportCo to his brother. 

Even though the absence of an anti-delegation clause means that Ishmael may delegate his work to his brother, he is still viewed by ExportCo as being responsible for the successful rendition of the work originally allotted to him. According to Melvin (2011), working parties are permitted to contract substitutes to carry out any responsibilities that they agreed to perform under a contract. However, the delegator, who, in this case, is Ishmael, is still viewed as being responsible for ensuring that the work is well performed and that there are no errors in it. This means that if Ishmael’s brother is unable to do the work delegated to him, or even submits shoddy work, it is Ishmael who will be held responsible for this infraction.
In most cases, working parties do not need to inform the other party with whom they made an agreement about the desire to delegate duty, in the absence of an antidelegation clause in the contract. However, there are special circumstances that call for the person choosing to delegate to make the decision to abstain from doing this. For example, there are certain specialized skill professions whose functions cannot be delegated because it could severely affect the outcome, or even provoke litigation from discontented consumers. For example, lawyers, doctors, actors, or even artists may not delegate their responsibilities to others (Melvin, 2011).
This is because there is a special confidentiality that characterizes their agreements to work under a contract that cannot be reproduced with a third party without the consent of the other party. It is also illegal for one of the parties in a contract to delegate a chore or work-related responsibility to a competitor of his partner. As Ishmael does is not in a sensitive area of work, and his brother does not work for a company that is an established rival of ExportCo, he is free to delegate his ExportCo responsibilities to his brother as long as he remembers that he will be held responsible for the outcome. Read More