Review the Case below and Answer the questions posed at the end of the case study in essay format.
CASE;
Metropolitan Paper Company (“MPC”) is a small socially conscious manufacturer of a
variety of consumer paper goods – most notably toilet paper – owned by the Davenport family. MPC, located in the Midwest, has a modest-sized factory and distribution area but has been looking for opportunities to expand their organization. At the beginning of the 2020 calendar year, Eliza Grapid, the general manager of MPC, had been tasked with identifying different options for increasing the company’s revenue.
In the spring of 2020, the Bolonavirus (commonly known in social media as “BO-20”)
began rapidly spreading across the United States and the nation quickly experienced a
drastic and dramatic shortage of toilet paper. Eliza, whose personal motto is carpe
diem, saw the nationwide toilet paper shortage as the answer she was looking for and
decided to seize the day by markedly increasing MPC’s production of toilet paper. After the mandated quarantine period, MPC employees began returning to work at the factory in shifts to ensure that employees were able to maintain the prescribed 7-foot social distance from each other. Eliza instituted the necessary safety precautions for MPC’s staff and tried his best to ensure that the organization was in compliance with all state and federal guidelines.
Jong Lee and Jorge Johnson were MPC’s lead production specialists, in charge of the
company’s machinery and assembly line. One day, while working on the factory floor,
Jong – who was known as the company prankster as a result of the frequent jokes
played on colleagues – used a face mask as a slingshot and launched a roll of toilet
paper at Jorge in an effort to make him laugh. Although Jong meant no harm, the roll hit Jorge square in the face, took him by surprise, and he tumbled backwards hitting one of the machines. Birdie Bashful, the company’s compliance officer, saw Jorge’s accident and as she ran to assist Jorge, she slipped on a puddle of hand sanitizer that had leaked out of one of the many dispensers and hit the floor with a loud thud. Jong called 9-1-1 to report the injuries. As the ambulance arrived and the EMTs were carrying Jorge and Birdie out on stretchers, Jorge’s husband, Tyrone, arrived at MPC to bring him the head!”
Tyrone, upset at the sight of an injured Jorge, screamed and collapsed to the ground.
The EMTs took out a third stretcher and whisked everyone away to the hospital.
Eliza, who was extremely upset by the day’s events, called Jong into her office to
discuss her behavior. She locked the office door, telling her that she would not be
leaving the office until she promised to end her pranking ways. While sequestered in the office, Eliza received a call from Blaze Bananas, the President of Any State University (“ASU”) and her long-time pickleball archrival, to discuss MPC’s contract with the university. MPC supplied ASU with toilet paper and paper towels for the restrooms as well as napkins for the cafeteria. Blaze explained to Eliza that ASU was running dangerously low on it’s supply of toilet paper and felt that staff members were stealing rolls from the restrooms. Despite MPC’s increased toilet paper production, they were still not able to meet the current demands of some of their customers.
Eliza explained to Blaze that given the current status of the pandemic and increased
demand for toilet paper, she could not make any promises on fulfilling a new purchase order for ASU. However, she promised that she would do the best she could to have toilet paper shipped out soon. Blaze reminded Eliza that their supply contract, drafted on a napkin over one too many late-night cocktails following a pickleball tournament, stated “MPC will supply all the toilet paper requested by ASU on-demand until 2030.
ASU will pay the lowest possible price per roll.” She angrily told her that if MPC could
not hold up its end of the agreement, then she would find another supplier who could
and angrily ended the call. Blaze then proceeded to polish her pickleball championship trophies. Two weeks later, Blaze sent Eliza an email asking about the status of the toilet paper shipment. Eliza responded to Blaze’s email advising that MPC’s warehouse was struck by lightning during an awful storm and it’s entire contents was destroyed, so MPC was unable to fulfill the order for ASU at this time. Eliza assured Blaze that MPC’s production team was hard at work and she hoped to be able to ship the toilet paper soon. Without responding to Eliza’s last email, Blaze immediately contacted another supplier to place an order.
Since its founding in 2000, the Davenport family has operated MPC as a sole
proprietorship. Upon their parents retirement, siblings Reign and Sunny Davenport
became the new owners of the company. Although they bicker frequently and usually
have opposing viewpoints, Reign and Sunny agree that operating as a sole
proprietorship has its disadvantages and are seeking to restructure the company. Reign wants to ensure that his 1965 Ford Mustang and vacation home in the Florida Keys is safe from creditors and Sunny seeks to protect her prized collection of cat statues. They both agree that avoiding double taxation is ideal and they also want to maintain equal control of the business and share equally in the profits of their growing toilet paper empire. While Sunny doesn’t care about taxation, Reign wants his tax liabilities to flow through to each of them individually. If one of them passes away, they do want to ensure that the business does not dissolve as a result.
Reign and Sunny call upon MPC’s corporate attorney, affectionately known as Sharkey, for guidance and advice on how to best proceed with reorganizing the business.
Sharkey recognized that all of their needs are important and also advised that they will want to ensure that the ownership of the company is easily transferable. Given the characteristics described by Reign and Sunny, Sharkey advised that either a general partnership, limited liability company, or a corporation would be the best choice for MPC’s reorganization.
1. Briefly summarize the three different categories of intentional torts (10 points).
2. Explain the three categories of damages available in tort cases (15 points).
3. Briefly explore the tort theories of negligence and strict liability (15 points).
4. Identify and explain the torts present in the scenario (20 points).
5. Who should be held liable for damages and what damages might be available to
the various parties involved in this situation? (10 points)
The assignment should be presented in APA format and be a minimum of 500 words (2 pages or more), pages to be double-spaced, typed in 12-point font. You MUST provide a header for each question, use bullet points, or numbers for each response to ensure your paper is well-organized.
