Legal Environment

Bryant University

Legal Environment of Business

Prof. Colten W. Hall

Midterm Examination

Fall 2016

Instructions: Please answer the following questions to the best of your ability. As

instructed in class, you should utilize a coherent writing method that highlights your

ability to spot each legal issue, understand the law that relates to that issue, and indicates

your ability to use logic and reason to analyze those legal issues in relation to the law.

All answers must be typed in Times New Roman 12pt font, double-spaced. Answers must

be submitted to Blackboard by 11:59PM (23:59) on Sunday, October 30.

As this is an at-home examination, all resources from our class are at your disposal. You

may use the notes you’ve taken in class, the notes I have provided you, the packets,

dictionaries, websites, etc.

You must work independently on this exam. You may not talk about it with classmates,

nor may you seek help from anyone on any part of the exam. Failure to abide by these

rules will result in a failing grade and academic disciplinary action.

This exam contains five pages and two fact patterns.

Good Luck!

Contracts Question:

M, the head of a secret intelligence agency needed to recruit numerous new secret agents for an

assignment. For obvious reasons recruitment for such positions is highly classified and therefore

subject to a lot of restrictions. M has at his disposal a network of government-approved candidates

that can be promoted to the special “00” status, thus becoming field agents. These pre-approved

government employees all receive a weekly email announcement consisting of intelligence data

and other administrative announcements. M asked his secretary, Miss Moneypenny, to send via

this email system a recruitment announcement that states “Seeking well-qualified candidates for

advancement to 00-status as field agent. Applications sent before 5:00PM, Friday, January 9,

2015 will be conditionally approved pending confirmation by an inter-agency panel.”

Two of the numerous recipients of this email were James Bond and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who

both decided they would accept. James sent an email with his application materials on Thursday

morning, while Ernst sent his Wednesday afternoon. Both applications were received by

Moneypenny and directed to the inter-agency panel, which she heads. Mr. Bond’s was approved

but Mr. Blofeld was denied for being a “security risk.”

Mr. Blofeld, angered by his denial, lodged a complaint against M in court for breach of contract.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bond, now given the codename “007” was tasked with his first assignment—to

find and arrest the head of a global criminal organization by the name of Spectre. Prior to leaving for

his mission, James met with Q, the head of the Research and Development division of the

intelligence agency. After his security and technology briefing, James and Q began chatting and

James noticed Q’s watch, which he believed to be a highly valuable Omega brand and would go

great with his new suit. The watch is actually a cheap replica Omega, but Q said that if James

brings the Aston Martin he has been assigned for his mission back “without a scratch on it,” he

would give James the watch. They shook hands and James drove off in the Aston Martin.

On his mission, Mr. Bond decided that he would like to meet an old friend, Vesper Lynd, in the

bar of his hotel. After ordering a few “shaken, not stirred” martinis, Mr. Bond and Ms. Lynd’s

conversation turned to Mr. Bond’s desire to purchase an apartment in the city, since his work

will be taking him there quite often. Ms. Lynd, whose apartment had been on the market for

some time now, asked Mr. Bond if he would be willing to pay $500,000 for a three-bedroom

apartment in the city center. James, hoping to look around more, asked if she would keep the

offer exclusively to him for a month. Vesper, exhausted from the day said she would, but only if

he bought her a drink and hailed her a taxi. James agreed, leaving her to finish her martini as he

flagged down the cab.

Approximately two weeks later, James decided that he would indeed like to buy Vesper’s

apartment. He quickly scribbled down on a piece of paper “I will take it! With love, 007” and

dropped his message in the nearest post box. Sadly, a day before the letter arrived, Vesper

drowned to death in a freak accident.

Distraught over his friend but also determined to settle his own business affairs, James reached

out to Ms. Lynd’s estate to determine what was to come of the apartment. Vesper’s executor then

blankly rejected Mr. Bond’s request to continue with the contract of sale.

While this was occurring, Mr. Blofeld, not content with merely using the courts, began

connecting with his contacts in the criminal organization, Spectre, which he secretly leads. Mr.

Blofeld directed one such contact, Raoul Silva, to begin an affair with Miss Moneypenny, the

secretary of M. During the affair, Mr. Silva was able to obtain personally embarrassing

information from Moneypenny which he threatened to disclose to her employer if she did not

help get Mr. Blofeld promoted to the “00” section.

After months of dating and emotional manipulation, Moneypenny agreed to meet with Mr.

Blofeld and signed an agreement to have his application materials approved by the inter-agency

panel, which she heads.

After signing the agreement, Moneypenny decided that she would rather confess her

embarrassing secrets to her boss, M, than allow Mr. Blofeld to infiltrate the “00” section. Thus,

after meeting with M, Moneypenny’s inter-agency panel once again rejected Mr. Blofeld’s

application materials.

Unaware of the drama unfolding at Headquarters, Mr. Bond began his journey to return the

Aston Martin to Q. En route to the Research and Development Section, Mr. Bond got into a high

speed car chase, as he so often does, with a Spectre thug. After narrowly escaping death, Mr.

Bond noticed that there was a small scratch in the paint on the car’s hood. Mr. Bond didn’t have

time to get the scratch fixed so he hoped that Q would just not see it. Luckily for him, when

James returned the car Q did not see the scratch, and gave him the watch. Unluckily for him,

when James later inspected the watch he noticed that it was merely a cheap knock off.

What are the potential claims between the following various parties, what would a court likely

decide with regard to each? Discuss all legally relevant issues. (Do not exceed 7 typed pages).

1. Blofeld and M/Agency 2. Q and Bond 3. Vesper and Bond 4. Moneypenny and Blofeld

Torts Question:

Sterling Archer, who usually goes by his last name, is the world’s greatest secret agent (or at least

he thinks he is). Cheryl Tunt owns “Danger Zone,” a new nightclub frequented by New York’s

wealthy elite, even though it has a “dive bar” feel to it. The bar also draws customers for its hipster

vibe, even going so far as to have a dog that roams the space and lazily lounges around while the

clients enjoy their drinks.

When the events that bring forward this potential lawsuit arose, Archer, though he would never

admit it, was seriously depressed because Katya, his fiancée, was recently killed by his spy

nemesis, Barry Dillon. Archer was spending most of his days sitting at home getting drunk on

Glengoolie Black and insulting his housekeeper, Woodhouse. On May 20, 2015, Archer, who is a

heavy drinker with a high tolerance, woke up at 12 noon, drank a Bloody Mary and three glasses

of Gleengoolie Scotch Whisky. He then decided to visit his favorite bar, Danger Zone.

At Danger Zone, Lana Kane, who Archer used to date and with whom he has a strained

relationship, was bartending. Danger Zone is a small space with a large bar, several tables, and a

jukebox. Cheryl, the owner, loves Country music, and is a former country star herself. Therefore,

the jukebox has over 500 country songs, in addition to many hits from other genres. There is a sign

above the jukebox that says “WARNING – listening to music may make you dance!”

Archer arrived at Danger Zone around 3pm and started looking at the songs in the jukebox. Pam

Poovey, who is a friend of Cheryl’s and also a regular patron of Danger Zone recognized Archer

and started to talk to him about country music. Archer soon started to choose and play various

country songs on the jukebox.

After talking to Archer for about five minutes, Pam returned to the bar to ask Lana for a new drink.

Meanwhile, Archer started to dance to Watermelon Crawl, a classic from Tracy Byrd. Several

customers started to clap and cheer, including Ray Gillette, another frequent customer at Danger

Zone, and former co-worker at Archer’s spy agency. Upon seeing Archer dancing, Pam ran to the

jukebox and put on Boot Scootin’ Boogie by Brooks & Dunn, in the hopes that Archer would

entertain the crowd with a line dance to the song (as he had many drunken nights before).

Upon hearing his favorite song, Archer jumped on top of the bar and started to dance even more

wildly. At first Lana, still bartending, rolled her eyes as her ex-boyfriend danced around but when

Archer noticed she wasn’t paying attention to him, he yelled “Lana. Lana! LANAAAAA!” Lana

was laughing at first, but quickly became worried that Archer would hurt himself. “Archer, get off

the damn bar!” she yelled. At this time there were several empty glass bottles of beer on the bar

close to Archer’s feet, in addition to Archer’s glass of water. In response to Lana, Archer shouted

“NO – the sign says that I can dance!” and refused to get down. He began to dance more and more

crazily, and began to kick his legs around doing the line dance.

Just as the chorus of the song screamed out “get down, turn around, go to town, boot scootin’

boogie!” Archer took the directions a bit too seriously and followed the instructions, kicking his

legs out powerfully, sending several of the glass bottles flying. Three of the glass bottles flew

across the room and hit the jukebox, smashing the glass on the front of the jukebox and breaking

the records inside. Pieces of glass exploded across the room. One piece of glass bounced off of the

wall and flew through an open window, hitting Cheryl in the face, who had been outside smoking

a cigarette. The glass seriously cut Cheryl’s face, and covered in blood, she ran inside to see what

was happening only to fall to the ground after passing out due to shock.

Meanwhile, the commotion scared the bar dog, Duchess, who jumped up and, though out of

character for the animal, bit Ray. Pam, seeing that more than one person in the bar was bleeding,

ran to the kitchen looking for something to stop her friends’ bleeding. She saw a set of towels on

the drying rack and a bottle of “KGB Cleaning Solution” which, besides the brand name, appeared

to be a Russian product with instructions only in Russian.

Pam raced back to Cheryl, and poured some of the cleaning solution onto her face, cleaning the

blood up with the towels. The cleaning solution immediately began burning Cheryl’s face and the

severe pain brought her back to consciousness. Cheryl, screaming at the pain, forced Pam to stop

using the cleaning solution and had Lana call an ambulance.

An ambulance arrived and brought Cheryl to the ODIN Hospital, where Dr. Krieger performed

plastic surgery to fix her scars and stop the bleeding. The plastic surgery went perfectly, however,

even the best medical treatment could not completely fix the scars or the additional damage done

by the cleaning solution. Additionally, even now, one year later, Cheryl has trouble sleeping,

cannot wear contact lenses because they give her serious headaches, and often needs to have her

friend Cyril Figgis watch the bar because she is so tired from the headaches and must rest.

Answer the following questions and discuss all legally relevant issues that relate to them. (Do

not exceed 5 typed pages).

1. Will Cheryl’s negligence claim against Archer succeed?

2. Does Cheryl have a claim against Pam?

3. Does Cheryl/Danger Zone have any potential liability to anyone arising from these

events?