Cases for Analysis - Coursework Example

2. It is understandable why Yellowstone wishes to settle all the claims out of court. A trial would inform public opinion about the low quality of the mowers and would harm the company’s image. It is also understandable why the company’s lawyers keep the claims out of the court. Considering the fact that this is an abnormally dangerous defect, Yellowstone should act ethically and just publicly admit its fault, retrieve all the mowers from the shops and work on repairing them. However, the ones that should go to court and accept no settlement are the injured parties, the consumers who have suffered because of the defected products. 3. Again, it is understandable why Yellowstone would like to include the secrecy clause in the settlement agreements.

If one party were to start talking about the defect of the mower and about the fact that the claim was kept out of the court in change for an impressive sum, Yellowstone would be forced to deal with one of the two situations: 1. Their sales would grow, as a result of people looking at this like at a business opportunity: buy one defective mower, wait until it explodes, threaten the manufacturer with a lawsuit and get a refund from Yellowstone, or 2. Their sales would be drastically reduced as a result of the bad publicity.

None of the situations looks good so that is why secrecy clauses are included in the settlements. The morality of this is doubtful and the reasons why the affected consumers accept this are even more questionable. Legally, such clauses are not prohibited and are, on one hand, acceptable. However, cumulating the fact that none of the defection cases is made public, the products continue to be sold, in spite of their obvious defects and the insertion of the secrecy clause in the settlements, the situation, on the whole, is not legal and the company’s marketing policy is based on deceiving the clients. 4. As it has been stated before, the answer to this question is No; the injured parties are not acting ethically when agreeing not to disclose the products’ defect to others.

They are consciously accepting the fact that somebody else may be injured. Moreover, in legal terms, these people are liable under the law of tort, as acting with recklessness towards the possible hundreds of victims. The Restatement (Second) of Torts defines reckless conduct as it follows: “The actor's conduct is in reckless disregard of the safety of another if he does an act or intentionally fails to do an act which it is his duty to the other to do, knowing or having reason to know of facts which would lead a reasonable [person] to realize, not only that his conduct creates an unreasonable risk of physical harm to another, but also that such risk is substantially greater than that which is necessary to make his conduct negligent.

”2 Although this definition is close to negligence, no matter what tort is applicable, all the parties that agreed to the secrecy clause did not act ethically or legally correct. CHAPTER 2 CASE 4 In my opinion, the right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the USA Constitution is violated in this case by Mississippi University for Women. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment stipulates: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they