Aspects of Contract and Negligence Law - Assignment Example

Contract and Negligence Law There are four such situations, which can clarify the importance and the meaning of such negligence laws at the work place, these negligence and contractual law are actually meant for the good of the employees and the workplace environment. Task 1: Design a Booklet Regarding Tort Liabilities for the Service Managers: They usually make many of the arrangements so that there will be no chance of occurrence of any mis-hap in the work place. But it is evident that despite all arrangements and precautions, still there remain some of the loop holes in the planning process which may create a situation of any accident thus causing anxiety and problems for the management (Kircher 2002). In order to avoid any such situation, there are some laws and regulations, which facilitate the sufferers of these mis-haps by putting a liability on the management or any other responsible authority. These are termed as the contract and negligence laws (Holonec 2006). In this section, the booklet will define certain laws and conditions, which will help to illustrate the accidents and any emergency situations for the insight of the service managers. This booklet is basically designed to provide the deep insight about the tort law and its liabilities on the management in case of any unusual and forlorn situation or we can say accident. Being a manager of any particular department, it is the responsibility of the person to ensure the safety and the precautionary measures at the work place. There is a special law named as ‘Tort law’, which provides relief to the suffering people by putting liability on the responsible authorities like management of the company or the councils. Therefore, it is necessary to know about the facts and the laws about the situation of tort and the contractual and negligence liability. This insight is necessary for the managers so that they can protect their employees by adopting different safety measures. Because facing the liabilities for the incident of negligence and unsafe work place may destroy the repute of the business. Contrast liability in tort with contractual liability: Torts are actually the wrong deeds or the actions of one person, which may cause damage to another person’s body, property or anything. A tort is actually a civil mis-deed and thus it is dealt in the civil courts. As compare to these torts, a contractual liability is a type of contract between the two parties, which may bind them together. The basic difference between the tort and the contractual liability is that the law automatically imposes the tort liability but the contractual liability is voluntarily accepted after a mutual agreement between the two parties. Both of these tort and the contractual liabilities have some similarities, for example both liabilities are imposed because of breaching act at the work place. Another similarity is that both tort and the contractual liability may allow damage awards to the sufferers so that some of their loss can be recovered by the financial aid from the responsible authority. Despite similarities, the basic difference between the tort and the contractual liability is the involvement of consent of both parties. This picture shows the consent of the management and the worker for any contractual liability. The second picture is showing an accident at the work place due to the negligence of the supervisor. In this situation, the supervisor or the responsible authority will be sued for the tort liability. Explain the nature of liability in negligence: Negligence cases are usually based on the non-contractual aspects of the parties. These parties can be known to each or may be unknown. In the situation of negligence, the law is usually imposed and not voluntarily accepted by the responsible person or the authority. Sometimes the responsible authority is asked to pay for the relief of the sufferer and thus providing him a financial help. After the imposition of the law, the next step of liability is to come up with the remedy for the negligence situation. A financial aid is a kind or we can say a part of relief remedy. In case of negligence liability, the damages are considered as payable. Therefore we can say that the nature of negligence liability can be of monetary terms. Explain how a business can be vicariously liable: Vicarious liability is actually the situation when the business is considered partly responsible for the wrong or unlawful deeds of any other third party. This situation can be possible when the company is unable to control the situation and thus considered as responsible or liable for the worst situations. In case of business and the employers, there are many vicarious liabilities on them, which can create a bad situation for the business. Now the key question may arise that doe the employer or the business is directly involved in that vicarious activity or on the other hand, does the employee is doing this on some personal statement or by mistake. For example we can say that if supervisors or the line managers are not behaving lawfully towards the employees at the work place and the employees may sue the top management for the unlawful work place environment. Then the company or the top management is not directly involved rather they are suffering the situation because of the unlawful behavior of the supervisors. Task 2: Inspection of Accidents at the Construction Site of a Central Library Building and a Memorandum of Legal Advice to the head of the Construction Site: The management or the employers at the workplace are very much conscious about the safety and the security issues of their employees and the workers at the work place. Still there may happen certain contingent situations that are create a problem for the management especially when any employee is badly injured or suffered it on his own. In this situation of an emergency the construction site of the central library faced two worst situations, one is the head injury of a person due to the fall of a light hanging from the ceiling and the second incident is the fall of a young boy in the five feet deep hole. The head of the construction site should prepare a report on the inspection of the two events or we can say accidents. This report should focus on the reasons and the causes behind the accidents. Here it is questionable statement that why the ceiling light fall? Was there no regular check and balance on the accessories and the technical support of the central library? This fall was done because of the lose strip of the fancy lights. The person got a bad head injury. In this situation the head of the construction site can go for contractual liability because it is purely the responsibility of the managers of the central library or the construction site that person got injured. In this situation of the negligence at the construction site of Central Library, the head of the site is responsible for his uncontrolled measures and for not proper precautionary measures. An old borrower of the central library was severely injured on his head because of the falling light from the ceiling. The reason behind the fall of the light was it is lose strips. On the other hand, a ten year kid was badly injured because of fall in the five feet deep hole. The fall of kid is more severe accident because of the age of the sufferer. He is not at all aware of the technicalities of the construction site. Therefore, the construction site manager is responsible for all these acts of negligence at the working area. There are special laws provisions to provide the requisite safety measures to the employees or the workers in case of such negligence. It is not an unusual matter, because the workers at the construction site are always subject to injuries and dangers. Nevertheless, in this situation of the central library, the injured people are not part of the construction site and thus they are unaware of the details of the construction site. This is purely imposed on the site managers to arrange proper precautionary steps in order to compensate these two cases and avoid any such discrepancy in the future. The injured person can sue the construction site managers or the companies for not highlighting the danger signs. The management at the construction site is now responsible for the provision of enough compensation for the recovery of the loss of the effected persons. In this way, the management has to pay a price for their negligence at the working site. There are some other liabilities, which will be imposed on the head of the construction site. One and the most important liability is that of negligence. After that, there comes the liability of the breach of trust from the people’s perspective. The breach of trust may cause a bad image in the market. Therefore, the company will lose its brand name in the market. Task 3: Note to Chief Solicitor of Councils of Waste Management for advising the Legal Issue of Gavin: Vicarious liability Here there is a need to write a legal advice for the managers of the waste management council of the area for the legal issue arise due to the truck and cab collision. The apparent reason is the negligence of the truck driver but in legal way, the council will be held responsible for the accident because it is a situation of vicarious liability. In this situation, Gavin is the truck driver and is responsible for his duty to carry the garbage of the area and thus transport it to the waste management destination. The situation is worst when Gavin carries his aunt in the truck, which is only used for the garbage disposal, and no one is allowed to sit in despite the waste management council members or the employees. The situation is even worst when they had an accident with a local cab and thus got serious injuries. As a legal advisor I must say this is the situation of vicarious liability on the waste management council. Now the waste management council is responsible for the action of the Gavin truck driver because he is the employee at the council. The vicarious liability refers towards the imposition of liability on one person due to the mis-deed or the unlawful action of another person. This vicarious liability is imposed just because of the reason that Gavin is the part of the waste management council and thus waste management council is held responsible for the wrong action. The reason behind this wrong act of Gavin is that the waste management council is not strict about the implementation of the laws by the employees. The council has a clear law that no one except a member of the waste management council is allowed to sit in the garbage carrying truck and a truck driver is not at all allowed to change the decided route at any cost. However, in this situation Gavin is responsible for both wrong deeds. At first, he lifts his aunt in the garbage truck and after that; he also changed the route plan so that he can drive fast. Nevertheless, on this new route he met with a severe accident. This accident caused severe injury to his aunt and the cab driver too. Now the cab driver is free to sue a tort case on the waste management council because of their negligence towards the duties of the employees. In this way, we can say that the waste management council is not directly involved but they have to suffer the vicarious liability. They will have to pay for the relief compensation. In order to resolve the situation, the management at the waste management council can go for a contractual liability with the cab driver. It is possible that cab driver will get back his case from the civil court just because of the volunteer compensation offering from the waste management council. As this is the case of negligence in the employment then there can be four important factors to be assessed just to check the waste management council. It is quite possible that management of the council was negligent at the time of hiring of such an employee, which may not obey the rules and regulations, and then the whole thing comes on the employers’ side. It is also possible that employer or the waste management may not provide enough training programs to the truck driver and thus he met with an accident. Again, it is the liability on the employer side. Another important aspect is the negligence in the supervision of the employees. It is possible that the waste management council will not supervises the drivers in proper and regular manner so that the whole incident occurred. Therefore we can say that the overall responsibility of the accident is on the shoulders of waste management council and thus there should be deep inspection about the accident that why it happen due to lack of check and balance or may be due to lack of training or the capability of the driver. In either situation, the waste management council have to bear the loss. Task 4: Brief Note for legal Advice for the Negligence at the College Laboratory: Here the task is to assess the situation of the accident faced by the laboratory assistant and then send a legal advice on the matter. As a matter of fact, first accident is the negligence of the lab assistant while the other accident is natural and the management may not held suspected for it. In this case, the laboratory assistant faces two of the accidents, which cause severe injuries to him. At first, the chemical reaction caused irritation and itching in his eyes and after that he slipped on the wet floor. It seems that both of these situations fall under the category of the negligence of employers for the security and the safety of the employees at the work place. It is questionable here that why there were no extra pairs of eye protecting glasses in the laboratory where there is high risk of such chemical reactions at any point of time. The college management is the actual authority to be questioned here for the availability of the important precautionary tools and equipments in the sensitive places like a chemical laboratory. After the incident of the chemical reaction, there is another severe incident when the laboratory assistant falls down on the wet floor just because of the reason that he could not see the precautionary boards or pointing banners. Here the management cannot be hundred percent accused of the accident because they have placed certain boards and warning signs for the wet floor due to the water leakage and there is also a sign board placed to illustrate the alternate route or path. However, the situation is not entirely against the management in the second accident but anyone can point out that it is also questionable that the management should work efficiently on the settlement of the issues, which may create a harm or a danger to the employee’s work and health safety. The non-availability of eye protecting glasses is the highlighted issue, which can be the base of the tort law. In this situation, the employee can even sue the company or the college management for not maintenance of the working environment of the college. The civil court will impose tort law on the college management for the non-maintenance of the safety measures for the employees. There are many evidences, which may impose tort law. As it is the duty of the college management to provide proper work place safety for the workers and in this situation, laboratory is the place, which is very sensitive for any such chemical reaction. Therefore, there should be proper tools and equipments and in addition to tools, there should be availability of proper treatment of any such discrepancy. Another evidence is the breach of duty from the laws and regulations. The college management is failed to provide proper tools and equipment and thus they are actually breaching from the rules and laws of the provision of standard working environment for the employees and especially in these sensitive places like chemical laboratory. Another evidence is the damage or the injury to the employee. Here in this case, the laboratory assistant is having an eye contact with the chemical and thus there is a chance of severe damage to his eye sight. In this case, the management is also responsible for the situation. Because it is direct loss to the human body and the condition for the imposition of tort law is the damage to the property or the human body. If we deeply analyze the situation, then an important factor is that the lab assistant mixed two wrong chemicals and thus it can be the question on the capability of the lab assistant that is he enough capable to deal with the critical situation of handling dangerous chemicals in the laboratory. Another possible solution for the both parties is to sort out a mid way between the liabilities or the imposition of laws. This mid way can be the settlement of the contractual liability by volunteer efforts of college management. In this way, the college management has to pay some compensation package to the employees who got injured during his or her duty. Works Cited Holonec, L 2006, ‘Contractual Liability and Tort Liability’, Contribution to the Study of Tort Liability, Number 61, page 2 - 5 Kircher, I 2002, ‘The Four Faces of Tort law: Liability for Emotional Harm’, The Common Law, Special Issue, page 24 - 39 Clarke, P 2014, Contract and Tort Laws, Legal Match, viewed December 11, 2014 from http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/contract-and-tort-law.html Read More