Business Law Case Study - Book Report/Review Example

 Briefing Paper Critical Legal Thinking The fourteenth amendment of the United s of America constitution was adopted as one of the reconstruction amendments, in July 9th 1868. The amendment sought to address the rights of citizens and equal protection before the laws to all persons, either born or naturalized in the US. This included former slaves who had just been freed. Apart from the equal protection before the law, the amendment forbids states also from denying any person the right to life, liberty or property, without due process of law within its jurisdiction. The role of states was expanded in the protection of civil rights to all Americans. The protection before the law has been cited in many litigations than any other amendment on the constitution. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution seeks to prohibit states from denying any person, the equal protection of laws, within its jurisdiction. This means that, the laws of the state must treat any person in the same manner as others in similar circumstances and conditions. Just as an example, a violation would occur if a state prohibited an individual from entering into an employment contract because s/he is of a particular race. The southern states bitterly opposed the 14th amendment as they were having slaves as workers and they held the view that Africans could not be treated as equal to white Americans. The U.S. Supreme dictated the application of different tests that are unique to each state, depending on the type of classification and its effect on the fundamental rights. This meant that there is no clear rule for deciding when a certain classification is deemed unconstitutional. The courts found a state classification that it is constitutional if it had rational basis to legitimate purpose for the state, unique to itself. In the case Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S. Ct. 1138, 41 L. Ed. 256 (1896), Plessy who was black rail worker attempted to sit in an all-white railroad car. He was arrested for violating an 1890 Louisiana statute that provided for segregated separate but equal railroad accommodations, after refusing to sit in the black railway carriage car. He was found guilty by the presiding judge Justice John H. Ferguson on the grounds that the law was reasonable exercise of the state’s police powers based upon, usage, custom, and tradition. In his appeal in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, he filed for the writs of prohibition and certiorari against Ferguson. He cited that segregation stigmatized blacks and stamped them with a badge of inferiority against the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments. The court found Ferguson not to have erred. The Ferguson’s judgment, in my opinion, did not violate the fourteenth amendment as was upheld by the state’s Supreme Court. The law did not intend to imply any inferiority of blacks, as to violate the Fourteenth Amendment. It was intended to separate the two races, as a matter of public policy. These meant that separate infrastructure like housing, schools and transport had to be provided so long as they were equal. In retrospect though, the law was abused as such facilities for the black race were run down resulting in a state of disrepair. In a landmark case decided in 1954, the earlier interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment, in all litigations, were reversed. The case is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 (1954). The case was a consolidation of several different cases from South Carolina, Delaware, Virginia and Kansas. Legal representatives of several black children sought admission to public schools that required or permitted the segregation based on color. The plaintiffs alleged that this segregation was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In a two to one ruling, a federal district court cited Plessy v. Ferguson, to deny the relief under the separate but equal doctrine. But in an appeal at the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs contended that the segregated schools were not and could not be said to be made equal and that they were therefore deprived of equal protection of the laws. Justice Warren ruled, in a unanimous decision, that the race-based segregated public schooling violated the Equal Protection Clause. Education, therefore, must be made available to all on equal terms in all public schools. This case, demonstrates that the US Constitution is a living document that should be able to adapt to changing times and circumstances. This interpretation should be applied to every sphere of life in the contemporary America and civil rights have expanded over time to just not look at the narrow view of race, and nationality, but to view all human beings as equal before the law (West, 1994). Briefing Paper 2. Law Case with Answers Cine operated a movie theater in Times Square area, New York City. Cine filed a lawsuit against the Allied Artists Pictures Corporation with an allegation that Allied artists and local theater owners conspired to prevent Cine from opening its theater, in violation of federal antitrust law. Cine filed a case Cine Forty-Second Street Theatre Corp. v. Allied Artists Pictures Corp., 602 F.2d 1062 (2d Cir. 1979) in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The plaintiff claimed $3 million in treble damages as the defendant denied it first-run quality films. The attorneys for the defendant filed a first set of written questions concerning lawsuit on Cine to answer. Cine responded four months late, to these interrogatories and the responses were severely inadequate. Cine failed to meet two subsequent court orders compelling discovery. The magistrate found the plaintiff to be willfully disobedient. In 1977, Cine subsequently filed another round of answers, both of which were inadequate, and one was also two months late. The responses did not include a formula for calculating the main portion of the alleged damages. Cine had not produced this despite repeated requests by the defendants and the magistrate. In 1978, the defendants moved a motion for the dismissal of the case on account of the plaintiff’s failure to obey the court’s order requiring a response on calculation of the damages. The magistrate still found the plaintiff as willfully disobedient and therefore recommended that Cine be precluded from introducing evidence on damages in future. The district court held that it was not possible to confirm that Cine’s disobedience was willful against grossly negligent. The district court then certified an interlocutory appeal (University of Michigan, 2003). In this case there are two sides and for each, a certain degree of right, I suppose. The interrogatory questions are might have not been called for as such questions could have been asked in the court before the magistrate. I think that if such questions could be asked as a way of cross examination in the court. If the defendant would not answer the questions adequately, then the magistrate would have formed her opinion. I think the interrogatory questions acted as a way to act a deterrent for proceedings in court. This is a serious miscarriage of justice especially if the plaintiff’s counsel cannot appear in court. Such questions would provide such information that the defendants might use against the plaintiff well before the actual proceedings in court. Cine, having felt that the defendant had presumably acted in a manner as to undermine its right to open and operate its business; this violated the antitrust law of the state. Cine had a substantive action against the defendant. It is the work of the court to find out if it is true or false. If true, the court must award damages. If not true then, there was not need to impose a fine on the part of the plaintiff. The imposition of the fine that the magistrate recommended was in itself a form of punishment and the plaintiff had a legitimate antitrust matter before the magistrate’s court. Further the imposition, by the magistrate, that the plaintiff cannot bring another action against the defendant is illegality before the eyes of the law. On the other hand, Cine has to answer interrogatory questions on time. The defendant has a right of reply as they have a right of business. No one should issue any sanctions against them whatsoever, so long as they are in a legitimate business. The questions might have provided the information that the court could have used in the determination of the case. This would save the court’s time in interrogating the legitimate, or lack of it, concern of the defendant right to business in a fair and competitive manner. Briefing Paper 3. Critical Legal Thinking Case Briefing Paper The Illinois State legislature enacted a statute called the Women Ten Hour Law in 1909. It was meant to prohibit women employed in factories and manufacturing facilities from working for over ten hours per day. This did not apply to men. An employer, W. C. Ritchie & Co., went to court challenging the statute as being unconstitutional, as it violated the Equal Protection Clause of Illinois Constitution. The case was W. C. Ritchie & Co. v. Wayman, Attorney for Cook County, Illinois, 244 Ill. 509, 91 N. E. 695, 1910. The judges, in upholding the statute, held that the it is know that all men women’s physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place them at a great disadvantage in the battle of life. According to them, a man can stand for more than ten hours a day without injury to himself. On the other hand a woman burdened by motherhood cannot stand like a man. A man can stand upon his feet for more than ten hours day after day without injury to himself but, a woman cannot. This can impair a woman health in case of manual labor while thus standing, day after day hence a weakly and sickly women cannot be mother of vigorous children. They observed in a consensus opinion too, that not only in this country but in other civilized countries of Europe that a working day of not more than ten hours for women is justified for the following reasons; i) The physical organization of women ii) Her maternal function iii) The rearing and education of children iv) The maintenance of the home In my opinion, the judges were right owing to the fact that physically women are not comparable to men. The physical strength of a woman is less than that of a man and court must be alive to that fact. Moreover, women are deemed as housekeepers and therefore requiring that a woman stand in a factory work environment for length of time similar to that of men is unrealistic. Expecting a woman to go strong in performing other house chores while a man is seated is not equality before the law. In terms of health, women carry pregnancies and take care of babies for some time after birth. This often, takes a toll on their health hence expected to take leave or are assignment less demanding duties. This then means that they cannot be able to stand for long in the factories. This means therefore that need better working conditions with better health and safety facilities than an average man. I agree with the judges that the law ought to be a progressive science that addresses issues as they come and are not consistent with the past. On the contrary, I would be against this law as it treats women as special beings. This is because the contemporary working environment is very different from that of the time the law was enacted. All duties in working environment do not take a toll on the health of a woman of so long the minimum required health and safety requirements are met. The then physically demanding factory work has been either computerized or mechanized. Robotics has replaced the human being hence requiring less human intervention. Human beings are only required to fix parts or aid fixing by machines and therefore a woman can do. There has been a growing trend that came along with civil rights, that gender rights form an integral part of the civilized society. The gender rights movement has sought to make all jobs as open to women as possible as it is to men. That there are no jobs which are said to me manly jobs and on the other hand there are no jobs to be viewed as only performed by women. Men nowadays assist women in house chores and on the other hand women seek to do all jobs that are deemed to be only-men-duties. Civil rights movement on gender matters seeks to bridge the gap that, has over time, existed on women financial independence. Society, as it were, used to consider a man as the provider for all needs for the family. But the society realistically is composed of single women with their own families to provide for. Limiting them on what they could do to earn a living means that you are limiting their finances too, if for example, they are of limited education (Guido, 2014). Briefing Paper 4: Ethics Cases John Manville Corporation was a profitable company making a variety of building and other products. It was a major producer of asbestos used in insulating buildings and other various uses. Having been medically proven that excessive exposure to asbestos causes a fatal lung disease called asbestosis. This resulted in thousands of employees exposed to asbestos contracted the disease suing the company for damages. Due to the huge number of suits, the company filed for reorganization bankruptcy. This is captured the case In Re Johns-Manville Corp., 36 B.R. 727, United States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. New York 1984. The company argued that if it did not, that an otherwise viable company that provided jobs and served a useful purpose in the society would be destroyed. This meant that without declaration of bankruptcy, a few of the plaintiffs who first filed for lawsuits would win awards of hundreds of millions of dollars leaving nothing for the remainder of the plaintiffs. The court agreed with the company to be restructured by creating a separate fund to pay current and future claimants. The fund was not large enough to provide the payments to cover fully the injured persons’ claims. It is my opinion that every employer should provide a good working environment free from any hazard t an employee. When this is not me, then the employee is negligent when an employee falls sick from the hazardous nature of the working environment. In this case Johns Manville is liable for negligence in the working conditions that led to the exposure of its employees. Therefore it must pay all claims that is due and has been found to be legitimate. In analyzing the facts above, I would have agreed with the court in the decision that it made. In basing on the huge amount involved in the claims against the company, it was only a better option to restructure in order to reach all the claimants that will file suits in future. The company might not have been able to pay claims as they occur in the amounts that were involved on individual basis. The claims would have meant that the company would have paid a few claimants and went under before all other several thousands of claims could be settled. This will keep the company profitable for years to come while currently providing an agreed amount of fund to the compensation scheme in order to reach all (Mann & Roberts, 2013). If not then, few will benefit while a majority suffer from effects of the hazards. John Manville met its duty responsibility to everyone that was involved. The compensation might have not been adequate but at least it was covered all. On the other hand, the process might still be viewed as unethical. This is because, the company was mainly concerned with its ultimate survival in future and to remain in business other than the individual employees who suffered. These employees might have not received adequate compensation for the health complications that arose out of the negligence of the company. Employees might need to source funds from personal sources to fund medical bills that arise. This could drain family savings, money that would otherwise serve other purposes. . Works Cited Guido, G. (2014). Legal and Ethical Issues in Nursing, 6th ed. New Jersey. Upper Saddle River. Pearson Health Services. Mann, R & Roberts, B. (2013). Essentials of Business Law and the Legal Environment 11th ed. Ohio. Mason. South-Western Cengage Learning. University of Michigan. (2003). “Federal Civil Procedure”. West's New York digest, 4th, 113. West, R. (1994) Progressive Constitutionalism: Reconstructing the Fourteenth Amendment, UK. Durham and London. Duke University Press.   Read More