Business Law Question

Overview

• Introduction
• Homework responses are an exercise in applying the concepts you’ve learned about for that week. Submit your homework as a single MS Word document with clear labeling and distinctions for each response. To obtain full points you must apply the concepts we’ve studied to date and use the tools and skills studied in your response. Always cite any paraphrasing and quotes from your textbook, lecture, or other sources.
• Directions
• Find a copy of a local ordinance that has affected you. Attach it and discuss. (Housing and Landlord-Tenant Relations for military members (local area virginia, USA)
• Answer: Chapter 1 - Questions 1 (Bryant Gunderson), Bryant Gunderson is a sole proprietor with a successful bungee-jumping business. He is considering incorporating his business. What levels and sources of law would affect and govern the process of incorporation?
• Question 9 (classify subject matter), Classify the following subject matters as substantive or procedural laws:
• 1. Traffic law on speeding
  2. Small claims court rules
  3. Evidence
  4. Labor law
  5. Securities
• 10 (Juul – note updates in the law after this book was published), Juul has been the leader in the development of vaping products. Its flavored products have been popular with high school students. As illnesses and deaths tied to the use of vaping products grew, cities and states began passing laws that restricted sales by age, required ID, or limited sales locations. Local retailers objected to the laws because the products were legal under federal law. The Food and Drug Administration began holding discussions on bans of vaping products or bans of flavored vaping products. Juul noted the research that concluded that its products help people to stop smoking cigarettes. Juul also pulled its ads targeting young people and stopped selling flavored products to teens. Discuss all the levels of the pyramid of laws involved in this controversial product. Be sure to consider whether a federal ban would stop all sales or if the states could still allow the sale of vaping products. Explain why Juul took voluntary actions
• and Business Strategy – COVID p. 16. Business Strategy COVID-19 Lockouts and Business Civil DisobedienceBecause of the rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), the governors in a majority of the states imposed lockdowns on business operations. Those businesses that provided essential services could continue operating, but nonessential businesses could not continue operations unless employees were able to work from their homes. The economic impact, particularly on employees and small businesses, was devastating. A handful of business operators in the lockdown states felt that they could operate their businesses safely without risking infection to their customers. For example, Shelley Luther, the owner of Salon A La Mode in Houston, Texas, defied the executive order of Governor Greg Abbott that did not permit hair salons to open. She was cited for violation of the governor’s order, received multiple cease-and-desist orders from a state court, and refused to shut down. She explained, “I’ll go to jail to prove what they’re doing is unconstitutional.”
  Ms. Luther was arrested, and when she came before the judge, he told her that if she would apologize, he would not send her to jail. Ms. Luther refused to apologize and explained, with all due respect given to Judge Eric Moyé, that she and her hairdressers were just trying to work to feed their children. Judge Moyé labeled Ms. Luther “selfish” and sentenced her to one week in jail and a fine of $7,000.
  Lt. Governor Dan Patrick paid Ms. Luther’s fine himself. Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court to intervene. The court ordered Ms. Luther released from jail because of the lack of authority to enforce executive orders by criminal punishment. Governor Abbott issued a follow-up executive order that prohibited jail time for those who violate the lockdown order. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was Ms. Luther’s first customer when she returned to her salon.
  The American Board of Trial Advocates issued a statement supporting Judge Moyé’s actions: “As Judge Moyé rightly noted, if any citizen or business could violate those orders or, for that matter, any law as they saw fit, then no rule of law would exist and anarchy would prevail. Businesses might feel free to ignore health codes. . . . This must never be the case.”
  Discuss the risks of using civil disobedience as a business strategy. Apply what you have learned in this chapter to all of the events in this case. Think about jurisprudence, executive orders, civil versus criminal law, and the role of the courts.
• Answer: Chapter 2 - Questions 1 (E. & J. Gallo), E. & J. Gallo, the world’s largest winery, announced that it would stop selling its Thunderbird and Night Train Express wines in the Tenderloin, the skid row of San Francisco, for six months. Gallo took the action after meeting with an activist group called Safe and Sober Streets, which has asked grocers to remove the high-alcohol wine from the district, where citizens say drunks create a menace. One retailer in the district said, “If I don’t sell this, I will have to close my doors and go home.”Discuss the actions of E. & J. Gallo and the dilemma of the retailers in the district. Be sure to discuss the type of philosophy each of them holds with respect to social responsibility and ethical dilemmas.
• 4 (Kenneth Branch), Kenneth Branch was an employee with Lockheed Martin in 1996. At that time Lockheed Martin was competing head-to-head with the Boeing Company for a government contract worth $5 billion. Mr. Branch interviewed for a job in Boeing’s rocket division in 1996 and began employment at Boeing in January 1997.
  The government awarded the contract to Boeing. An internal investigation by Boeing revealed that Mr. Branch and his supervisor, William Erskine, had thousands of pages of proprietary documents from Lockheed Martin, including detailed information about Lockheed Martin’s costs and specifications for the rocket contract. Boeing turned over 11 boxes of documents to Lockheed in 2003, some of which were marked “Proprietary.”
  Applying the model on steps for analyzing ethical dilemmas and case studies in business you learned in the “Consider …” feature, determine whether there were any ethical breaches in Boeing’s conduct.
  The author has performed consulting work for Boeing on changing its ethical culture. Why is this disclosure important in this text? Why is this disclosure important to you?
• 9 (Heinz), Heinz Ketchup holds 54% of the U.S. ketchup market, and nine of every 10 restaurants feature Heinz ketchup. However, Heinz has learned that many restaurant owners simply refill Heinz bottles with cheaper ketchup, thereby capitalizing on the Heinz name without the cost. One restaurant owner explains, “It’s just ketchup. The customers don’t notice.” There are no specific health regulations that apply, and owners are not breaking the law by refilling the bottles. Do you think this practice is ethical?
• 10 (Gerald Grinstein), Gerald Grinstein, the former CEO of Delta Air Lines, refused to take any bonuses, stock options, or extra compensation for 2006 and instead would take only his base salary of $338,000. Grinstein arranged to have $1 billion distributed to about 39,000 nonunionized employees and 1,000 managers within 12 to 15 months after the airline emerged from bankruptcy. “I’m the dawning of the old age,” was the comment the 74-year-old CEO made when asked why he was taking such an unprecedented step. Grinstein is giving up an estimated $10 million. He also added, “Corporate pay packages have gotten out of control. It has become a salary derby out there.” Grinstein still arranged to have bonuses for top executives if they hit certain profit targets and explained, “You have got to have a program that attracts executives but at the same time you’ve got to take care of the relationships with frontline employees.” Apply the various schools of social responsibility to Mr. Grinstein and decide which he followed. Think about the regulatory cycle’s application to the issue of CEO pay. What do you think regulators will do?
• and “Self-Interest versus Selfishness” on p. 70. Economics, Ethics, & the Law: Self-Interest versus SelfishnessAdam Smith, in what has been called the seminal work on free-market economics, wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Self-interest, then, is what Smith believed to be the motivator for economic engagement and growth. Is there a difference between self-interest and selfishness? Where would social responsibility fit in the Smith view of the relationship between ethics and economics? However, 17 years before writing Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments and included the following observation about ethics and business: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others and render their happiness necessary to him though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” What does this quote reveal about Smith’s attitudes toward social responsibility?