Business Law exam 2

Respondeat superior

-"let the master answer" - a principal who is an employer is liable for torts committed by agents: 1) who are employes 2) who commit the tort while acting within the scope of their employment

Express Authority

-Actual authority that the principal has manifested to the agent in very specific or detailed language.

Gratious agent

-An agent who receives no compensation for his services

Dynegy V Yates (437)

-Collateral Contract -yates represented a Dynergy employee which they agreed to pay legal fees, after some consideration dynergy decided they would no longer pay those fees starting then -After yates's client was arrested, Yates sues Dynergy because they agreed to pay the legal fees. -Yates won because of breach of oral contract to pay for his fees was made before he started to serve his client.

Gottlieb V Tropicana

-Consideration is the focus, mainly bargained for exchange -Gottlieb went to Tropicana Casino and hotel, register for Diamond Club membership where they gave away personal information and allowed tropicana to monitor gambling habits. -In exchange got certain benfits like free roll of Million dolar wheel, and won it. -Except, when it landed on the million dollar slot, it instantly rolled again meaning that Gottlieb won two free tickets to a show instead. -Gottlieb gave up things like personal information and time that could of been spent doing other things because she had a membership that allowed her some benefits -B/c facts for both sides are stong, it had to be decided by a jury

Edgewater Motel V Gatzke

-Gatzke was smoking a cigarette while filling his financial records of his business trip. That cigarette ended up catching edgewater motel on fire. -Gets down to vicarious liability. -Gatzke was working under his scope of employment because he can both smoke and record records at the same time. Therefore, Gatzke was working within the scope of employment allowing walgreens to help pay for damages to Edgewater motel

Trademark Properties V A&E Television networks

-Intention to accept -"flip this house" was a tv show that Trademark developed and proposed to A&E. -show was a success and during the development process, terms were agreed on verbally. -A&E did not want to split the revenue 50/50 so they offered Trademark a different payment option which was declined. -Trademark sued for a breach of contract and won

Palese V Delaware State Lottery

-Palese bought and picked the winning numbers but washed his ticket in the washer, thus destroying it. -Delaware gambling law states you must have winning ticket in order for you to claim prize. -sued for quasi-contractual duty -lost because there was no ticket meaning he had no real proof of winning ticket.

Hinkle V sataria Distribution & packaging (450)

-Parol Evidence rule -made a contract for employment but got fired before full time frame was completed

Pride V Lewis

-Pride attempted to sell their house to Lewis, where lewis made a contract stating that they wanted to move in may 15th and pay this certain amount of money. -Upon receiving the contract, Pride changed the move in date to june 1st and asked their tenet (who has been paying on a month-to-month basis depending o closure of house) to move out by then. -Lewis did not show up to close house, causing Pride to sue for breach of contract -Ruled in favor of lewis because they had no obligation to state that they did not want to move in anymore.

Smith V Carter & burgess Inc

-Reasonable Interpretations and conditional precedents

Tort Liability of the principal

-Respondeat superior liability -Direct Liability -Torts of non-employee agents -Misrepresentation

Skebba V kasch

-Skebba was a high up employee in kasch's company and got a new job offer, kasch asked what will it take to get you to stay? made some request -undisputed fact that kasch knew skebba had another job opportunity in 1993, that kasch believed skebba's leaving would damage the company in the industry and that Kasch wanted Skebba to stay. -in short, every factor this court requires to be considered supports enforcement of the promise through promissory estoppel.

Direct Liability

-The principal himself is at fault, -Principal intends and directs agent's intentional tort, recklessness, or negligence -OR- -principal is negligent regarding hiring or training of agent

Moore V Woman to Woman (426)

-Unconscionability -Moore went to woman to woman to get a pregnancy checked out, they refered her to Premier perinatal, where Moore signed an agreement with several guidelines which did not allow her to sue them. -She then tried suing for medical malpractice. -Reveresed in her favor because they failed to mention when filling out the papers she was waiving any of her rights AND they did not give her a copy of the contract.

Tort of non-employee agents

-principal generally is NOT liable -exceptions exist for direct liability, highly dangerous activities, and non-delegable duties

Family Video Movie Club V Home Folks, INC

-provides an illustration of lapse of time and destruction of the subject matter -Home folks owned a property that Family Video wanted to buy -F.V. wrote up a contract and sent it to Home folks stating that they would pay 35,000 to HF for the property. -before the contract could be sent back to FV with signature, the place burnt down due to arson. -Because property got destroyed before HF moved out, FV was not responsible to pay HF

George v Al hoyt and sons (491)

-requirements for consequential damages

Employee

-servant

Voidable contracts

-those in which one or more of the parties have the legal right to cancel their obligations under the contract -EX: contract induced by duress is voidable at the election of the injured party

Armstrong v Rohm and Haas co inc

-vague contracts -Armstrong worked for a grinding company where the company began to shut down, offering either a severance package or the opportunity to move firms. -Plant manager suggested to Armstrong that he should take severance package and open up his own grinding company and that RH would throw enough work to him as he could possibly handle -went about getting his own shop then received few opportunities. -therefore, took a job with another company and found out that RH was still outsourcing to several other businesses and not giving them the original business that they agreed to. -the contract was to vague meaning that they had set no boundaries on how much work RH would actually give them therefore no breach was present. -Court ruled in favor of RH

Respondeat superior's acting within the scope of their employment

1) it was the kind that the employee was employed to perform 2) Occurred substantially within the authorized time period 3) occurred substantially within the location authorized by the employer 4) it was motivated at least in part by the purpose of serving the employer

Duty of Loyalty

An agent must subordinate his personal concerns by: 1) avoiding conflicts of interest with the principal 2) not disclosing confidential information received from the principal.

Authority

An agent's ability to affects his principal's legal relations.

Riggs V woman to Woman (418)

-Woman to Woman hired Dr. Riggs to be on staff. -W to W did not file the appropriate files to the state making them illegitimate business -Dr. Riggs worked and had the advantages of being involved in such a company -therefore when Riggs sued for misrepresentation and various breaches, she lost because she never filed her own paperwork either meaning she was working along the same lines as woman to woman -This evaluated the level of threat to the public interest and whether to enforce a contract involving a violation of a statue.

ratification

-a process whereby a principal binds himself to an unauthorized act done by an agent, or by a person purporting to act as an agent. -Can be expressed or implied

Promissory estoppel

-a promise that the promisor should foresee is likely to induce reliance, reliance on the promise by the promisee and injustice as a result of that reliance.

Implied Authority

-agents authority to bind their principals. -act in a way the agent reasonably believes the principal wants him to act.

Restatement (second)

-an attempt to reflect the significant changes that have occurred in contract law in the years following the birth of the first restatement. -reflects the "shift from rules to standards" in modern contract law-the shift from precise, technical rules to broader, discretionary principles that produce just results

Void Contracts

-are agreements that create no legal obligations and for which no remedy will be given. -EX: "hit" contracts

Implied ratification

-arises when the principal's conduct justifies a reasonable assumption that he consents to the agent's act.

Apparent Authority

-assent must be communicated to a third party. -depends on what the principal communicated to the third party-either directly or through the agent. -agents cannot give themselves apparent authority, and does not exist where an agent creates an appearance of authority without the principal's consent -the third party must reasonably believe in agent's authority

Actual Authority

-assent must be communicated to the agent -can be either: 1) Express Authority 2) Implied Authority

Subagent

-basically an agent of an agent -more precisely, a subagent is a person appointed by an agent to perform tasks that the agent has undertaken to perform for his principal. This agent is the old agent's principal, while also being the original principal's agent as well. Therefore the hierarchy would look like principal, principal (original agent), then agent.

Margeson V Artis (377)

-consideration -Margeson sold a weight loss business to artis with an original purchasing contract stating the selling price at $125,000. -then Margeson compiled an addendum in which they asked for 30,000 more without promising anything more than what they did in the original contract. -therefore, was simply a price hike in favor of Margeson, meaning that the addendum was not binding

Misrepresentation

-direct liability -vicarious liability when agent has authority to make true statements on the subject of misrepresentation -an exculpatory clause may eliminate the principal's tort liability, but the third party still can rescind the contract.

Special agent

-employed to conduct a single transaction or a small, simple group of transactions

Fiduciary Duty

-exist because agency is a relationship of trust and confidence.

Treadwell V J.D. Construction

-found that an agent acted for an unidentified principal when he disclosed he was transacting for a corporation, but gave the wrong corporate name to the third party whit whom he transacted. -Treadwell hired J.D. (wrong legal corporate name) to build a house, JD halted construction, then sued for breach of contract. -Treadwell won, because JD used unidentified or partial disclosed principal. -As a matter of law, Derr (owner) is personally liable for performance of contracts entered into as agent for non-existent J.D. construction Co, inc. or the undisclosed principal JCDER, inc.

East Capitol View Community Development corporation V Robinson (486)

-impossibility -Excuses for nonperformance -Robinson was hired under the conditions that she completes her work successfully. -EC fired her due to lack of funds, which was not part of her contract of employment therefore

Nonemployee agent

-independent contractor

General agent

-is continuously employed to conduct a series of transactions

Unenforceable contract

-is one that meets the basic legal requirements for a contract but may not be enforceable because of some other legal rule -EX: A contract for which the statue of fraud requires writing but no writing is made. this contract is said to be unenforceable

Okosa V Hall

-mailbox rule -Okosa had an insurance policy that they made a late payment for. -hall had stated, via mail, that they must send in their payment by no later then the 16th for their policy to continue. -Okosa sent in the payment on the 15th via certified mail which proves the date of departure. -therefore, Okosa would be covered by their insurance because of the Mailbox rule.

Timothy V Keetch (391)

-misrepresentation -Keetch used a breeder horse for two different collaterals of loans. -Meaning after they pledged the value of the horse to one loan, they did it again for another loan -Timothy won based on the fact that Keetch lied on several occasions and was not his duty to investigate the truthfulness of Keetch's claims

meram V macDonald

-motivational speaking (MacDonald) stated to audience that if you placed a business card inside a container and stayed for the whole session you would walk out with $1 million dollars -bc Mac is a multi-millionaire and representing a multi-million dollar company, it is nor unreasonable for someone to think that is possible. -therefore, verbal contract was made and Meram could receive $1 million

Expressed ratification

-occurs when the principal manifests assent that his legal relations be affected, such as stating orally that he wishes to be bound by a contract that has already been made.

unconscionable contract

-one that is grossly unfair or one-sided, and it gives the courts broad discretionary powers to deal fairly with such contracts.