Business Law Research Essay

1 – Review attached letter from a “client.”  Identify all of the legal issues presented in the letter.  Research the legal issues presented and prepare a letter back to the client outlining the legal issues and making specific recommendations to the client for each legal issues identified and described.  2 – Should be approximately eight (8) pages, double-spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman font with 1” margins.

 

3 – You do not have to use cites of case names or references.

 

4 – Reasoning is more important than conclusion!  If you tell your client “you shouldn’t do X” you should fully explain why he shouldn’t do X.  Apply the law to the facts in reaching conclusions.

Pig-out BBQ, Inc.

Our Pork is Smokin’!

Corporate Offices

24 Hickory Smoke Drive

East Bumble, Alabama 30699

TO: THE LAW FIRM

FM: Ronald T. Dumpp, Chief Executive

SUBJ: Legal Advice

Dear Lawyer,

After a few recent events surrounding our purchase and use of “Evershine Flooring” by FloorCo, Inc., I felt it best that I write to you and ask for your formal legal opinion about this matter. I’ll try and give you all the facts as best I can in this letter because I’m going to Barbados for three weeks and I will be unavailable during that time.

About eight months ago, we were approached by a representative from FloorCo Inc. regarding a rather remarkable new product that they had created. The representative told us that FloorCo had created a new process whereby they could fabricate a commercial hardwood flooring that retained a durable glossy shine “virtually forever.” They called this new flooring “Evershine.” As you know, all of our barbecue restaurants have hardwood floors. The hardwood floors provide us with a “country” atmosphere that our customers expect when they walk into a Pig-Out restaurant. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last eight years just maintaining the floors in our restaurants nationwide. We thought that this might be a wonderful opportunity to enhance the appearance of our restaurants while at the same time cut down on our huge maintenance costs. We agreed to discuss it at a board meeting and contact FloorCo at a later date.

A month after we initially met, I was playing golf at the Lonesome Pines golf course with a couple of friends and a person asked if they could join our group to make us a foursome. We said “yes” and, as it turns out, the person who joined our group was Robert Goodman who is the chief executive officer of FloorCo Inc. We rode in the same golf cart and struck up a conversation about the “Evershine” product line. He was a terrible golfer, but he had a stash of wonderful Cuban cigars and brought a bottle of 18-year-old single-malt Scotch (it was called “Glen” something or other) so we struck up quite a rapport. Monica in the “beer cart” caught up with us at the third hole and we purchased a few beers off the beer wagon.

At about the fifth hole Robert and I started to discuss the Evershine product line in earnest. Robert asked me what I thought about the product and I told him that it seemed too good to be true. After all, who has ever heard of a commercial hardwood floor that stays shiny forever and doesn’t need maintenance? Robert told me a little about their patented finishing process that allowed them to create this product, and I was very much impressed. He said that this flooring was specifically made for commercial use. We kept discussing it as we played golf, smoked cigars, and enjoyed the Scotch on the golf course. At about the 16th hole, Robert made an offer to me to provide Evershine floors to all 22 of our restaurants for $325,000 (uninstalled). We shook hands on the deal and finished our round of golf with an exchange of business cards and promises to “follow-up on the deal” later in the week.

Early the following week, I contacted a flooring contractor in order to contract for installation of the new flooring. I entered into a written agreement with the flooring contractor to install the Evershine flooring in all 22 of our restaurants. A couple days after that, Robert called and told me that his calculations had been a little off and that the the Evershine flooring would be $365,000. I told Robert that I had already entered into a contract with a flooring contractor and that his increase in the price more than exceeded what I had allowed for the entire project, including the installation costs. He apologized, stating that he probably shouldn’t try to do math in his head while drinking Scotch on a golf course, and told me that he would fax this offer to me if that was acceptable. I told him that since the flooring contractor was ready to go and I’d already signed a contract with the contractor, that he really had me over a barrel. He faxed the contract for $365,000 to me and I signed it and sent it back to him.

A few days later, I contacted Robert and asked him when I could expect delivery of the flooring to my contractor so he could start installing the flooring. Robert told me that the Evershine flooring product line turned out to be more popular than they anticipated and that my flooring was on back order. He told me that I would have my flooring in two to three weeks. My contractor was furious because he had based his agreement on doing the flooring over a four-week period starting the same week we signed a contract. My contractor indicated that if he could not start for two to three weeks, then I would have to enter into a new agreement, which I did. The cost of installation in the new agreement was $15,000 more, however, because I’d originally been given a discount to do the installation during a time when the contractor did not have a lot of work to do.

Three weeks went by and I still did not have my flooring. I called Robert and he assured me that it was on the way, but that a blizzard in Denver had the truck with my flooring at a dead stop. Finally, a week later, my flooring was delivered to the flooring contractor. The flooring contractor had to work his employees over-time to get my flooring installed by the contract completion date and as a result I had to pay another $5,000 for over-time to his employees.

I thought that our troubles were all over at that point, but it turns out I was wrong. This flooring is absolutely perfect looking, but in the last six months we have had eight customers who have slipped and fallen on the flooring and have been injured as a result of these slip and fall incidents. This flooring is incredibly shiny but it is also incredibly slick whenever any liquid substance comes into contact with it. Anytime somebody spills something on the floor (or so much as drops an ice cube on it), walking on that floor is like trying to walk on ice! Our customers go through quite a bit of our iced tea and having a few wet spots here and there simply cannot be helped. After the first two slip and falls, we just thought it was a fluke. You know, a little string of bad luck. But after the third fall in as many days, we knew we had a serious problem. I took a business law class and remembered Professor Barnard saying something about a duty to warn certain people of hazardous conditions, so we put up signs in all the stores warning our customers that the floors were “slippery when wet” (which is quite often). Since putting up signs, however, we have had five more slip and falls. The last customer who slipped and fell was a 300 lb. man who had a “bad back.” When he fell, he apparently made it much worse and we have received notice of a lawsuit from his lawyer. He was injured more seriously than the others, but his doctor says it was mostly a result of his own weight.

That’s about it in a nutshell. We have this “Evershine” flooring in all 22 stores. We paid a small fortune for it, but it just won’t work for us. On top of that, I have customers (who apparently cannot read our signs) slipping and falling in our restaurants all across the country. I’m hoping you can straighten it all out. After all, that’s why we pay you the “big bucks.” Please write me a letter identifying all of the legal issues that you think are relevant and let me know what I need to do (and what you need to do as my lawyer) to reduce my losses. I expect your letter to be waiting on me when I get back “from the islands.”

Ronald T. Dumpp

Chief Executive