Business law principles and applications

Civil and criminal law are two entirely different animals. The idea behind criminal law is always the state vs. An individual. Penalties for criminal law can include fines, community service, probation and jail time, depending on the type and severity of the offense.

In civil law, on the other hand, the parties can be virtually anyone or anything, including, but not limited to, states, municipalities, counties, individuals, private businesses, non-profits or corporations. The penalties here are either in equity - estoppel, injunction, forced sale, etc. - or monetary, as in compensatory or punitive damages. Compensatory damages are generally for pain and suffering, and punitive damages are to punish the losing party for its actions.

Civil suits do not directly involve a crime; as in, they are not in violation of any statute. Criminal law, on the other hand, involves a crime which in some way harms another party or society in general. That is why the punishments, or results, of civil suits and criminal suits are different.

As for burdens of proof, in criminal law, guilt must be proven by the fact-finder (generally a jury of peers) beyond a reasonable doubt. A party is innocent until proven guilty. In civil law, on the other hand, the burden of proof can be as low as preponderance of the evidence, meaning that there is simply a greater chance of liability than there is of no liability.

As for procedure, generally the procedure in both types of cases is the same, except criminal law builds in many more safeguards against improper incarceration. However, at the grand jury stage, certain rules such as evidentiary rules are overlooked that are strictly observed at a criminal trial.

Question 2.

Tort law heavily impacts businesses and consumers. In general, it raises the costs of products, and companies have to purchase insurance against suits and must often pay out large amounts of damages for failed products or services.

For instance, take products liability. Business that produce goods and release them into the marketplace are liable if the goods cause harm to purchasers or end users. In the Ford Explorer/Firestone tires debacle, Ford and Firestone were sued in many class action suits for exploding tires causing injury and death.

This of course raised the costs for the manufacturers, since they had to purchase insurance, defend multi-million dollar lawsuits, pay huge settlements and compensate their enormous legal teams.

And, the manufacturers passed the costs on to the consumers, so in the end, this is a perfect example of tort law affecting both businesses and consumers.

Question 3.

A legally enforceable contract involves three components: offer, acceptance and consideration. The offer has to be a clear offer to another party or parties, such that the party or parties know that an offer has been made, and know that they can accept it either by action or by accepting the offer.

Acceptance must be made by an intended party to the contract and must be understood by the offerer before he withdraws or retracts the offer.

And consideration is some forebearance on the part of both sides to make a contract enforceable. For instance, a simple promise is not enforceable. However, when a grandfather promises to pay his grandson $5 for every 'A' in school, and the grandson agrees, there is an enforceable contract in that both sides are giving up something: The student is working hard for grades and gives up his right to slack off, and the grandfather is giving up $5.

Consideration usually cannot be nominal, in that you generally cannot have $1 consideration for sale of a house.

Many other rules apply to contract law, like mutual mistake, unilateral mistake, the mailbox rule that defines when offers and acceptance are valid through the mail, impossibility, frustration of purpose, recision by minority, etc. But the basic components are offer, acceptance and consideration.

Question 4.

Title VII affects discrimination and impacts the business environment and employee relationships. Employers are not allowed to discriminate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or disability, and the act provides a private cause of action for those who are discriminated against.

This means that if a boss at a private company fires an employee for being gay, or refuses to hire an applicant for being Indian, or passes over an employee for promotion because she is a woman, the employee or applicant may sue the company.

This means, of course, that companies are impacted heavily. They must copiously record all human resources interactions, and make sure that bosses and hirers are educated on the law and do not discriminate. Otherwise, they could find themselves on the wrong end of a hefty Title VII suit.