al Ali Ali
BA 226
Chapter Exercise #3
1. Emotional Distress
While the Collections Agency's calling was not defamation in anyway, as they had legitimate claim to
attempt to collect on a debt, Citicorp did demonstrate negligence when compared to the Reasonable
Person Standard. Because Meads and his lawyer(s) did everything they could to inform Citicorp that
Meads was willing and partially able to continue paying back his debt, Citicorp was well-informed of
the status of the debt it was owed. As such, their attempts to collect the debt, especially those directed
toward Meads' place of work, were harmful to Meads' character, professional appearance, and general
well being. This constitutes negligence on the part of Citicorp and its affiliate debt collection agency.
2. Wrongful Interference
PG&E would have an easy time getting the courts to rule in their favor over a suit of wrongful
interference with a contractual relationship. Because Bear Stearns approached the Agency knowing full
well that they had a contractual obligation to PG&E, and that Bear Stearns intentionally, attempting
over a period of several years, induced the Agency to break their contract with PG&E, then Bear
Stearns really has no defense. This demonstrates how Bear Stearns spent an unreasonable amount of
energy, time, planning and resources to nullify the contract between the Agency and PG&E, and this
unreasonable nature is what makes this an 'open-and-shut' case.
3. Contributory Negligence
The hotel will no doubt succeed in its case. As the textbook states: All individuals are expected to
exercise a reasonable degree of care in looking out for themselves. In this case, both parties were
negligent. The man grabbing bags from the backseat should have been fired for his negligence as
nearly cutting off someone's hand by slamming a door is something that he/she needs to pay a great
deal of attention to. Giles could bring a degree of effective reasoning to his case using the rationale that
the bellhop should have exercised much better duty of care. But considering that the state of Michigan
has a state law that claims negligence that is a 'stand-alone' defense, and that Giles was certainly 'guilty'
of contributory negligence and assumption of risk (due to the nature of car doors in and of themselves0,
the court would be forced to rule in favor of the hotel.
4. Liability to Business Invitees
While the hotel can, to some degree, hide behind a defense consisting of the assumption of risk and a
limited duty of care, they will certainly lose this case as it was shown that the locks on the door frame
were not enough to deter even the weakest of criminals. If the locks had been sufficient to provide a
very basic level of security to the business invitees, then the assumption of risk and thus, the
responsibility of whatever happened, would have fallen squarely on the shoulders of the Kveragas.
Because they were shown to be deficient in almost every way, clearly demonstrated as being far too
weak and cheap, then Scottish Inns Inc. is guilty of negligence through the definition of strict liability,
as the defective product, i.e. the lock, constituted an incredibly dangerous product, i.e. the hotel room.
5. Duty to Business Invitees
The store should not be punished for Ward's injuries because of the nature of a 'service door'. A
business' duty to their business invitees revolves around the way that they carry out their business. This
involves customers using the door that is obviously intended to be used, i.e. the front door. Walmart has
greeters at the front door, not the service entrance. Because of the nature of this door, that being one
that is obviously intended to be used only by its employees, K-Mart is not subject to duty of care, strict
liability or negligence. By Ward's willful and knowledgeable use of a door that was explicitly meant to
be used only by employees, he took on contributory negligence as well as assumption of risk. Just
because the pole is there does not mean that K-Mart was negligent. If the pole had been placed in the
middle of the front door, where business invitees are supposed to enter and exit from, then the story
would of course be different. The court would rule in favor of K-Mart.