Business law and Movie Critique

BUSI_2301_Spring_2019_MovieCritique1.doc

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BUSI 2301

Movie Critique Assignment

DIRECTIONS:

You are to choose one of the following movies and write a critique concerning the related management aspects of the movie. The paper should be typed, and at least three pages in length. Thoroughly discuss the premise of the related management aspect of the movie and then write a paragraph of two of your own opinions. DO NOT write a review of the movie per se—but make correlations between what you’ve learned in the class and relate it to specific parts of the movie. Rules for correct grammar, syntax, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation must be observed. Papers must be the sole work of the student

If you need assistance with your writing, you may refer to North Lake College’s Writing Center. Located in Room A332, the Writing Center is open 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday through Thursday and 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Friday. Saturday hours are 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Students can also call 972-273-3089, or email nlcasc@dcccd.edu . Finally, another resource for students is to The Elements of Style, by Strunk & White.

Students are to watch movies about workers, bosses, unions, corporations, shareholders and how they get along. We want to explore the legal issues presented from the individual’s side and from the business’ point of view. We will use these films to explore basic questions about how workers are motivated, what makes for more and less effective leadership in different circumstances, the effects of unions on workers and firms, and discrimination by race and gender. We will also consider issues about how filmmakers use their craft to convince viewers of their point of view. Students will compare these movies with workplaces they know, and draw conclusions about workplaces, about films, and about their relationship.

* Identify the Plaintiff of the case, and present their side of the story.

* Identify the Defendants in the case and present their side of the story.

Following each movie is a suggested aspect that you could build upon in your critique-but definitely not the only management aspect within the movie to be discussed.

1. The Verdict (1982)

2. Class Action (1991)

3. Philadelphia (1993)

4. Pelican Brief (1993) Civil Law Issues

5. Disclosure (1994)

6. The Rainmaker (1997)

7. A Civil Action (1998)

8. Erin Brockovich (2000)

9. Runaway Jury (2003) Civil Law Issues

10. North Country (2005)

11. The Informant! (2009)

12. The Social Network (2010)

13. Promised Land (2012)

14. The Big Short (2015)

Once you have identified the legal issues and the business issues of the movie, go online and research other examples, the laws of the USA that you find, and other cases you can find on related topics. When looking up laws, keep all types in mind from legislative laws, to municipal codes, to court decisions in key cases, to administrative agency regulations. Back up your thoughts with examples you find in sources such as Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, financial periodicals, etc. At the end of your project include a bibliography as a last page.

DUE DATE: Friday, May 3rd, 2019

POINTS: 100 Points

EXAMPLE STUDENT PAPER

Joe Student

7/5/2010 – Summer I 2010

North Lake – BUSI-2301-7426

The Insider (1999)

I. Background

The movie The Insider, released in 1999, is a dramatization of a true story involving the development of a 60 Minutes special story revealing secrets of high-ranking executives (namely CEOs) in “Big Tobacco.” The primary source for the story is Jeffrey Wigand, a former research executive at one of the nation's leading tobacco companies, Brown & Williamson. Wigand agrees to discuss what he knows despite the fact that he signed a non-disclosure agreement (or confidentiality agreement) with Brown & Williamson as part of the terms of his employment and severance. Though the film does not actually depict any litigation, the constant threat of Brown & Williamson pursuing a lawsuit, as well as other more menacing forms of enforcement, in regards to Wigand's breaking of his confidentiality agreement is the source of tension throughout the movie's story. By looking at the story from both the corporation's and Jeffrey Wigand's perspectives, and by considering the events, threats, and implications the movie outlines, it is easy to see how corporate non-disclosure agreements can quickly lead to legally and ethically questionable situations.

II. Plaintiff

In a potential lawsuit involving Wigand's breaking of his confidentiality agreement with Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company would be the plaintiff moving against Jeffrey Wigand, the defendant. The corporation would contend that, by disclosing information about the company's work, research, and products to the media and public, Wigand has damaged the corporation's image, profits, and perhaps even their competitive advantage over other market entities. Specifically, Brown & Williamson would make the case that because he had signed the non-disclosure agreement, Wigand had no right to discuss with 60 Minutes what the company's research had shown in regards to the addictive nature of nicotine. They would say that by implying that the company was hiding this information, it could seriously damage the way their corporation and product is viewed by the public and government, and that their profits would take a significant hit.

In the only actual lawsuit referenced in the movie, though, Brown & Williamson was not the plaintiff at all. In fact, they were the non-moving party in a lawsuit in which the Mississippi attorney general is suing “Big Tobacco” to receive money to fund Medicaid payments necessary to treat individuals with illnesses related to smoking. The attorney general's position in this case is that cigarettes and other tobacco products are addictive and cause a serious amount of harm to the public, producing expensive medical bills for illness-stricken smokers. Sick individuals using Medicaid to cover the costs of their treatment rely on payments from the state's government, meaning that there is less money for patients with illnesses not related to tobacco products. Thus, the attorney general believes that “Big Tobacco” should be responsible for covering the cost of illnesses caused by their products. A deposition given by Jeffrey Wigand asserting that nicotine behaves as a drug in the human body could potentially be a key piece to the plaintiff's case.

III. Defendant

In a potential case concerning the confidentiality agreement which plays a large role in this movie, Jeffrey Wigand would be the defendant. He would be facing a lawsuit from Brown & Williamson as a result of speaking to 60 Minutes and giving a deposition in Mississippi about the effects of nicotine on the human body. Wigand's position would be that the CEOs of “Big Tobacco” perjured themselves when they told the United States congress that they did not believe that nicotine is an addictive substance and that it was his duty to the public good to defy his non-disclosure agreement and bring to light the addictive nature of tobacco products. He would argue that it would be a breach of ethics for him not to come forward and share what he knows, and that it is unethical (and possibly even illegal) for Brown & Williamson to attempt to enforce a confidentiality agreement which knowingly causes harm to the general public's health. Furthermore, even as a defendant, I believe Wigand would assert that the intimidation strategies and threats used by “Big Tobacco” to attempt to keep him from speaking out were illegal criminal threats. He could also charge that the dossier Brown & Williamson sent to media outlets with exaggerated information about past events in his life was a form of slander or defamation of character.

The defendant in the Mississippi attorney general case is a group of companies which form the business entity known as “Big Tobacco” (of which Brown & Williamson is part). Facing a lawsuit requesting that they be required to make payments to reimburse the state's Medicaid fund, “Big Tobacco” would assert that the negative health effects of smoking cigarettes and use of other tobacco products are largely speculative, with little or no scientific data to back up the charges. They would likely stick to their story that they do not believe nicotine or cigarettes are addictive. Furthermore, Brown & Williamson could challenge Mississippi's throwing out of a restraining order they placed on Jeffrey Wigand in order to prevent him from violating his confidentiality agreement by giving a deposition that could incriminate the corporation and reveal perjury on the part of “Big Tobacco's” CEOs.

IV. Possible Legal and Ethical Issues

The most prominent legal issue at play in The Insider is the question of how strong a confidentiality agreements can be in certain extenuating circumstances. If a crime is being perpetrated by a corporation against a third party, can a non-disclosure contract between the corporation and its employee legally keep the employee from speaking out against the crime? It seems that this issue boils down to determining whether contract law or tort law takes precedence in a given situation. The film also shows Brown & Williamson (assuming they were the ones carrying out the actions) taking extremely threatening measures against Wigand and his family in order to attempt to keep him from talking about company secrets. There is no doubt that making death threats against an individual is illegal, whether or not a confidentiality agreement may have been broken. Thus, if these threats were traced back to the corporation, they could face a serious lawsuit even if they are pursuing their own lawsuit against Wigand for breaking his contract.

The ethical questions in the conflict between Brown & Williamson and Jeffrey Wigand are clear. On Wigand's part, there was a decision to be made as to whether the potential consequences of breaking his confidentiality agreement were worth suffering in order to do what he believed was the right thing for the general public. The Insider follows the story of what happens when he decides that, in order to act ethically, he must break the non-disclosure contract and come forward, despite the fact that it is not in his personal best interest. The movie also raises the question of what happens when businesses place their employees in situations where they are expected to keep company secrets that make them uncomfortable. It's fair to assume that few people would argue with the fact that it is unethical for a corporation to force its employees to enter contracts which require them to hide the illegal activities of their superiors, particularly when dealing with substances and products that can harm the public.

V. Relevant Laws, Similar Cases, and News Articles

Under United States contract law, confidentiality agreements perform a number of functions that can be enforced by law. These functions include protecting commercial and technical knowledge/information from being released to outside parties, help prevent the “forfeiture of valuable patent rights,” and define specifically what an employee can and cannot discuss with other people/business entities. Even so, there are laws which help protect employees who desire to expose illegal activity on the part of their employer. The United States Whistleblower Protection Act, for example, helps protect federal employees from facing backlash if they report improper and/or illegal government actions. If an employee becomes aware of and reports their employer's illegal activity, they cannot be sued for breach of contract, though the employee must be careful as to what they discuss, as other parts of their nondisclosure agreement may remain valid.

In 1980, the US Supreme Court heard the case Snepp v. United States, which involved a former CIA agent violating a contractual agreement with the government agency stating that he would allow any written works to be pre-approved by the CIA before they were published. When the CIA discovered that this contract had been broken they sought punitive damages against Snepp. In the Supreme Court case, Snepp argued that his breaking of the guidelines of his contract with the CIA did not represent an infraction for which punitive damages were a legitimate punishment. The court, though, found that while being forced to pay punitive damages did not match the consequences the CIA suffered as a result of the breach of contract, it was the most fitting form of punishment they could deal to Snepp. This ruling implies that in a case in which an employee breaks a confidentiality agreement, they may face punishment beyond paying for the direct losses they caused to their employer. Using The Informant as an example, had Wigand been sued by Brown & Williamson for breaking his non-disclosure agreement, he could have been forced to pay large sums of money to the corporation, even if they could not explicitly prove that his actions caused significant monetary losses.

News stories reporting issues involving confidentiality agreements are no rarity in the United States. Hearings regarding banks in the recent financial crisis brought about one such snippet, published by the Associated Press in March of 2009. The case involved New York's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, attempting to have the State's supreme court disregard Bank of America's desire to place any testifying individual under a temporary nondisclosure agreement regarding matters of employee bonuses. This situation had many similarities to the attempts of Brown & Williamson to keep Wigan from giving his deposition in the Mississippi attorney general's case against “Big Tobacco,” proving that attempting such impromptu corporate “gag orders” is not as uncommon as one might expect.

VI. Conclusion

The Insider presents a very widespread and important business topic in an exciting and entertaining package. Even though it is a major motion picture, it seems to remain relevant and engaging without becoming too over-dramatized. The movie depicts the serious ethical issues that can arise in situations where one's employer is partaking in illegal or unethical activities, but the employee feels bound to silence due to contractual obligation. It is a conflict of interests that undoubtedly takes place very often in the corporate world, and weighs heavily on the contracts that link workers to their employers.

Works Cited

The Insider. Dir. Michael Mann. Perf. Al Pacino, Russell Crowe and Christopher Plummer. TouchStone, 1999. Film.

The Insider. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. July 2, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Insider_(film)

Frank Snepp. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. July 2, 2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Snepp