Multiple choice
1. Driving a car negligently, Adam crashes into a phone pole. The pole falls, smashing through the roof of a house, killing Beth. But for Adam’s negligence, Beth would not have died. Regarding the death, the crash is the
a. cause in fact.
b. intervening cause.
c. unforeseeable cause.
d. superseding cause.
2. Tomas is a business student with a very good business idea for academia. Tomas, with the help of his school’s entrepreneurship center, then develops a detailed business plan for an academic online course registration system. The faculty at the entrepreneurship center thinks that Tomas’ concept and plan have economic potential and thus are quite marketable. Tomas places on his business plan a Confidentiality statement, and also when he “shops” his plan to potential investors and school administrators he asks them to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Based on the aforementioned facts, which statement is likely TRUE?
a. Tomas has protected his business plan by means of federal patent law.
b. Tomas has protected his business plan by means of federal copyright law.
c. Tomas has failed to protect his business plan by trade secret law since a plan, concept, or idea is too “soft” information, as opposed to a “hard” formula or device, for legal trade secret protection.
d. Tomas has protected his business plan by means of state trade secret law.
3. Big Oil Company wants to adopt an English-only policy for its employees working on its oil rigs. The policy applies only when the employees are actually working on the rig, and not while they are on break or otherwise on their own personal time. This policy is:
a. Legal if the company can demonstrate a legitimate business reason for the policy, such as safety concerns.
b. Legal if the employer gives it employees a reasonable amount of time to adopt and to conform to the new policy.
c. Legal if the employer teaches any of its non-English speaking employees to speak English.
d. All of the above.
4. The directors of Global Investment Company made a “bad” business decision in 2006, by relying on the advice of financial experts and lawyers and accountants, who all thought the real estate market would continue to rise for years and years; and thus the directors invested heavily in mortgage backed securities instead of conservative gold and gold stocks and Treasury bonds. Of course, when the recession came, Global Investment Company lost a great deal of money for its shareholder investors. The shareholders then sued the directors for negligence. The directors are best protected legally by:
a. The comparative negligence doctrine because the shareholders likely were sophisticated investors who should have known that “what goes up, must come down.”
b. The assumption of the risk doctrine since everyone knows that the stock market is a risky venture.
c. The Business Judgment Rule even though the decision turned out to be a “bad” business one.
d. The doctrine of strict liability for ultra-hazardous activities since it was common knowledge at the time that people were being granted mortgages with no down-payment and no verifiable evidence of income, assets, or employment.