Business Law and Legal Environment†Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Business Law and Legal Environment. Answer: Introduction The main purpose of law in a business contest is to oversee the Management conducts of the transacting parties. The law may enforce promises while overseeing agreements and contracts, or it may administer the conducts of the transacting parties under the law of tort. Common law enables the court to reason in a rational manner and assess the plaintiffs case in a justice way. This paper will be an examination of the application of common law, equity, tort, and agency law. Singapore uses English common as its primary law in its legal system. In (Tan, 2011) English common law came into Singapore through the Second Charter of Justice 1826. From then Singapore had been using the precedent rules as an essential part of its legal system. Besides, the legal system has accommodated the law of Equity and both laws form a magnificent part of Singapore Law. The general, precedent system is whereby a court's decision is based on what was decided. In (Mitchell, 2009) " Judicial precedent is a system of law-making by judges where the decisions made by judges, referred to as precedents, are used as models for future cases, and these are developed on a case-by-case basis to establish areas of law. Equity is a branch of law that originated from the Chancery Courts. Equity law aims at giving the plaintiff fairness, justice, and a clear conscience. In (Antoine, 2008), It is generally held that equity applies the principles of conscience. These are the postulates of English law that were formed and implemented in the ecclesiastical courts, the chancery, and admiralty. The different types of remedies available at equity are Injunction, specific performance, rectification, and restitution. These remedies are discretional. This means that its upon the court to reason and issue the remedy that it deems fit. The concept of promissory estoppels started with Lord Denning. In simple, (Twomey et al., 2011) the doctrine of promissory estoppel guides the court to enforcing promises despite that they lack considerations. The only requirement is that the plaintiff promised something to the defendant, then the defendant changed its position by relying on that promise. It's more of an inducement from the plaintiff to the defendant causing him/her to depend on his/her future actions. There are requirements for promissory estoppels, In (Miller, 2016), there must be a definite and unambiguous promise plus an expectation of the promisor that the promisee would act on the given promise. The promisee should prove that it absolutely acted in assurance on that promise which caused substantial damages. Lastly, if the promise would not be enforced, the innocent party would suffer injustice. The tenant cannot avoid the payment of full rent after 1945. The main reason is that there is no consideration for lowering the price. Secondly, the lowering of rent was due to the WW2. Thirdly, the suit had already served as notice to end the variation. For instance, in (Tool Metal Manufacturing v Tungsten [1955]) the court held that counterclaim was a substantial notice of the intention for reverting to the original Management contract. Therefore, the plaintiffs could not succeed on the reliance of the promissory estoppels. The issue in this question is the limitation of liability in bailment. Under normal circumstances, the law allows the bailee to limit the claims for liability by the bailor. However, the law has set the conditions that a bailee may limit such liability. In (Clarkson et al., 2014), In order to exercise the limitation; First of all, It is imperative that the bailee informs the bailor of the limitation, e.g., through a sign. In the decision whether a particular sign will constitute notice or not depends on the location and size. So this fact rules out the ticket as a notice of sign. Secondly, the limitations should not be working against any public policy. For instance, in bailment where mutual-benefit are occurring, there is a high chance of rebutting exculpatory clauses as a defense for negligence. So following this explanation, a ticket doesnt constitute a valid notice, and the court is likely to dismiss the ticket and allow Brigitte to recover the damages. One of the reasons is that the ticket doesnt amount to a valid contract. So family bus company has a duty similar to the ruling in (Bridge Tower V. Meridian Computer Center, [2012]), The court held that Meridian Computer breached the contract and therefore Bridge Tower had the right to recover the damages. For Lam to be compensated, he can initiate a claim in two way. The main ways is under the neighbor principle, and then support his case with the concept of an implied secondary reasonable assumption of risk. The neighbor principle was set in [Donoghue v Stevenson (1932)]. This principle aims at establishing the elements for negligence which are the establishment of the facts that the defendant had a duty of care to the claimant. On the other side, Slipperly Pte Ltd may argue that it had warned Lima. This is where the issue of Implied secondary reasonable assumption of risk would come in. In (Shapo, 2010), implied secondary reasonable assumption of risk describes the case where the defendant raises awareness over the risk he/she has negligently created, but the plaintiff voluntarily decided to face the risk in a reasonable way. For example, a possible case is where a landlord's negligence exhibited an infant to fire on a tenant's house, and the tenant rushed to the burning house to sa ve the infant; hence the plaintiff suffered some injuries. In such a case, the court will hold that the defendant cannot call assumption of risk' as a defense. So based on the above explanations, Lima would be entitles to damages like compensation for leg flucture, hospital bills, and the loss of salary if it wont be covered by the medical leave. For this case, its impossible for Lam to sue the two directors. Directors are company trustees in a special way. In (Tyagi and Arun Kumar, 2003), though the directors are the trustees of their company but their position is not like trustees in the legal sense. In general, the law takes a trustee as a person who owns and deals with the in the position of the principal owner. However, in the case of directors, they are just trustees in the matters of company properties, wealth, and powers. This means that they are not liable for loans or other company liabilities Management. With this, one can only sue the company for the breach of a contract but not the trustees. The term agency refers to a relation formulated through implied or express agreement between one person perceived as the principal, and the other person called the agent. The agreement grants the agent with authority to act with a third party on behalf of the principal. With that, the dealings of the agent tie together both the principal and the third persons giving the principal rights against third persons.(Twomey et al., 2011, p 850) The work in (Pillai, 2011) explains this concept as; Agents create contractual relations between the principal and the third parties. This act binds the principal to third persons. Similarly, the agents act gives right to third persons against the principal. An agent is merely a contracting link between the principal and the third parties. The agent has the power to make the principal answerable to the third parties for his conduct. What this means is that the same way Jingley had the authority to deal with Mona, its the same position had Jingleys firm bought from Hagia Mona. Ostensible Authority is the other name for apparent authority. In (Burnett, Bath and Burnett, 2009), a principal can be responsible for the conducts of an agent who acts without authority as far as the principals conduct causes the third person to think that the agent is authorized logically. In simple, the principal doesnt need to allow the agency, but it only requires an agent to do something that will make a third-party assume that the agent has the power. Following this, the principal will be answerable to the third party as though the agent had authority (Klass, 2010). The law takes into account that the principal is responsible to the third party since the principal either by word or deed, made the third party hold that the agent was representing the principal. Notably, for ostensible authority Management requires the principal has to do something that would convince the third party to believe in agents authority. Jingleys firm doesnt have a choice rather than to pay Hagia Mona Catering Ltd. Like it has been explained above on Ostensible authority, a contract formed between an agent with a third party is as binding as when made with the principal under the doctrine of apparent authority (Burnett, Bath and Burnett, 2009). The same case applies to Jingleys firm having Jingley contract with Mona for catering services. The main issue here is that Jingley represented the firm as she has always did, and Hagia Mona believed that she was sent by the firm as it always did. Before this, the firm had made Mona believe that Jingley represents it in acquiring food for the firm, so even for this day, Mona believed the same. In (Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council v Racing UK Ltd, [2005]), the court ruled that Mr Sanderson had apparent authority to bind the council the the contract. The case applies to Jingleys firm. Jingley had ostensible authority to bind the Firm with Hagia Mona Catering Pte ltd. Conclusion This paper has discussed the concept of common law, applications of promissory estoppels, tort law as well as agency law. Even though the paper didnt cover those concepts extensively, it has summarized some of the key parts in the mentioned laws. References Tan, K. (2011). Constitutional law in Singapore. 1st ed. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer law international. Mitchell, A. (2009). AS law. 3rd ed. Abingdon, UK: Routledge-Cavendish, p.75. Antoine, R. (2008). Commonwealth Caribbean law and legal systems. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge-Cavendish, p.166. Shapo, M. (2010). Principles of tort law. 3rd ed. West Academic. Twomey, D., Jennings, M., Fox, I. and Anderson, R. (2011). Anderson's business law and the legal environment. 21st ed. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning, p.340. Miller, R. (2016). Business Law Today, Standard: Text Summarized Cases. 11th ed. Cengage Learning, p.291. Klass, G. (2010). Contract law in the USA. 1st ed. Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, p.238. Pillai, R. (2011). Legal aspects of business. 1st ed. [Place of publication not identified]: S Chand Co Ltd, p.212. Tyagi, M. and Arun Kumar (2003). Company law. 1st ed. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, p.252. Clarkson, K., Miller, R., Cross, F. and Clarkson, K. (2014). Business law. 14th ed. Cengage Learning, p.947. Burnett, R., Bath, V. and Burnett, R. (2009). Law of international business in Australasia. 1st ed. Sydney, N.S.W.: Federation Press, p.368. Tool Metal Manufacturing v Tungsten [1955] 1 WLR 761 House of Lords Bridge Tower V. Meridian Computer Center, [2012] 272 P.3d 541, 152 Idaho 569 Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council v. Racing UK Ltd [2005] EWCA, Civ 999