Mouth Waterin Treats Company - Term Paper Example

of Learning: Final Law Term Paper Case A company that wishes to sell normal size packaged candy labelled “Gigantic Size” would be committing an act of economic misdeed. The company in question, “Mouth Waterin’ Treats Company,” cannot legally market their candy product bearing the phrase “Gigantic Size” on their wrapping. The reason for this would be because the potential consumers will be coerced into thinking that the product is bigger while in fact it is of the regular size. Such an act would result to the economic tort of fraud since it is clear that “Mouth Waterin’ Treats Company” will have the sole purpose of inducing reliance to the potential consumer and that on top of that they would be deliberately tricking the consumers into entering into a contract with them to purchase their product. A company selling a hundred per cent polyester sweaters is not allowed by law to advertise their product under the phrase “That Wool Feel.” This is so because the phrase would be found misleading to the potential consumers and would count as a misrepresentation since the makers of the sweaters know that using the term “that wool feel” is false representation and that it is intended to induce justifiable reliance to the consumers. Also the issue of monetary loss arises in the fact that it is relatively cheaper to use polyester as a cloth making material as opposed to wool. The act also results in to a fraud since reliance is also established by the fact that a statement of the sweater maker’s opinion will be held as true hence relied upon by the consumer since the manufacturer has, by general assumption, more superior skill and knowledge about sweaters. In this case, the five elements of fraud apply. Case 2 In a case where a person or an organisation decides to use other persons’ material and the material happens to be copyrighted or patented, then the person should be held liable for one or more of the intellectual property torts. In the case sample given, College Copy Shop gained money from publishing whose owners reserved the sole right of republishing, duplicating or copying as is the case with any original publisher. The law of intellectual property tort states that once there is a patent or a copyright, as is in this case, using it for any other reason other than the ones expressly allowed by the publisher would be an infringement to the patent rights; hence patent law would be applied in deciding the case should a legal suit emerge. Case 3 Ace Corp. sent an invitation to J. Brown to work for them; an act that is legally considered as advertisement rather than an offer. J. Brown replied with details that he would like the job for a certain pay coupled with other demands and technically that was the offer. Afterwards Ace Corp. replied to J. Browns offer and said that his offer was something they could work with and asked if J. Brown could report, something that he assented to. After the third month, he found that Ace Corp. was not honouring their initial agreement to the letter and decided to quit the job, where he moved back to the company he previously worked for before going to Ace Corp. During J. Brown’s exit from his employer Ace Corp., he took with him confidential information belonging to Ace Corp. and when he re-joined Crown, his employer before Ace Corp., he shared the stolen information with Crown. The issues in this case are if there was a contract between Ace Corp. and J. Brown, whether Ace Corp. breached it after denying J. Brown the bonus he had requested on the offer he made and if J. Brown can recover damages therein. Here is a detailed analysis on the above issues. Brown had a contract with Ace Corp. even though his offer was not out rightly accepted by letter or word of mouth. In the laws of contract, performance is considered as adequate and sufficient acceptance if it is done in response to an offer or a counter offer. I this case, Ace Corp. accepted J. Brown’s offer by inviting him to start working and hence Ace Corp. breached the contract by not paying J. Brown the bonuses. J. Brown also relied on the invitation to work with Ace Corp. and did a part performance of his contract by moving to Oregon from California, this makes the doctrine of promissory estoppele apply in this case. Brown can recover consequential damages if he proves that the costs he incurred were reasonably foreseeable but if the costs were not foreseeable. Had there been a written contract, he would have received incidental damages. Though there was no written contract, Ace Corp. would use performance as defence in the statue of fraud. It is clear it would have been hard for Ace Corp. to pay bonuses at mid-year and a full performance of paying the full annual bonus would have taken the place of writing. Ace Corp. does not have a claim against Brown or Crown for taking and using his secrets since that should be a clause stipulated in a written employment contract but Ace Corp. can obtain an injunction against Crown if they prove to have patented the secrets. On the issue of diverse jurisdiction, Ace Corp. would be able to sue Brown in a district court only if the amount he intends to seek in damages is not exceeding the limit set by the congress currently at $75,000. If more than $75,000, Ace Corp would be required to go to a federal court. Case 4 In the case of Luxe and Betsy, the single paged purchase order form was not an offer but an invitation to sale. The offer in this case was made by Betsy to Luxe through Sam and the acceptance was done by Luxe when they stamped “accepted.” The fact that she received the acceptance order form after sending a revocation does not necessarily mean she had beaten the thirty day dead line. In this case, the postal rule applies, (Adams v. Lindsell). Acceptance is good immediately it is sent but a rejection or a revocation is only good upon arrival, (Henthorn v. Fraser). Betsy would not raise a defence to breach of contract since she in this case is the offeree. Had it been a direct offer that had been made to her by Sam instead of being shown the purchase order, she would have grounds for claiming misrepresentation of material facts as a defense. Using Sam’s description “state of the art” as grounds for claiming misrepresentation as a defense could not succeed due to the statements ambiguity. Defenses to the statute of frauds will not apply to Betsy’s case since there is presence of written and there was no performance which is the primary defence to the statute of frauds. Uniform commercial code applies where an item or a clause is vague, ambiguous or unclear and it comes to fill in the gap. In the case of Betsy, there was evidence in writing and thus the uniform commercial code does not apply. Since damages are awarded to protect a plaintiff’s expectation interest, Luxe would be seeking to be awarded incidental damages by Betsy on the basis that Betsy’s failure to honor her end of the contract cost her two thousand dollars though she mitigated the damage and acquired one thousand, eight hundred dollars. References: Adams v. Lindsell. No. 106 ER 250, Volume 106. 1818. Henthorn v. Fraser. No. 2 Ch 27. Court of Appeal of England and Wales. 1892. Read More