Question 1
Patty Plaintiff is shopping for a laptop at her favorite store, Cash Mart. She does not find the one she likes and realizes that she is going to be late for her scheduled appointment. Patty hurriedly attempts to walk out of the store in a bid to be on time for her appointment. At the entrance, a security guard who accuses her of shoplifting stops her. Even though Patty denies and proves to have no items that belong to the store, the officer insists that she has to be searched. She is taken to a small room and threatened to be arrested and taken to jail if she leaves. The guard then leaves Patty alone in the room. The store's manager comes after over an hour and tells Patty that she is free to go. As a result, Patty Plaintiff is late for her scheduled appointment. The following are the tort claims that Patty can make against the store.
According to the Federal Tort Claims Act of the united states of America, Patty has the right to receive compensation for injuries and damages, among other elements, due to someone else's wrongdoing, in this case, Cash Mart (Laws.com, 2017). Patty has to file a claim against Cash Mart for accusing her wrongly of shoplifting, which makes her late for her appointment eventually. The first element in the tort claim that Patty would make against Cash Mart is the breach of duty (Laws.com, 2017). The security guard stopping Patty at the entrance to the store, taking her to a small room and leaving her unattended, brings about the breach of duty at the store. If he had suspected Patty of shoplifting, the security guard should have searched her thoroughly in the room and then let her go to attend her appointment. That would be after she has been found with nothing wrongly taken from the store.
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The other element of Patty's tort claim against Cash Mart is causation (Laws.com, 2017). After the security guard leaves Patty unsearched and in the room with the threat that if she leaves, she will be arrested and sent to jail, she is scared and waits for the manager to come. The threat issued by the security guard makes her late for her appointment, as she did not want to leave the store and be arrested. Therefore, the threatening situation from the security guard caused the lateness of Patty to her scheduled appointment. Additionally, the store's manager fails to attend to Patty's case in good time, which also leads to her lateness and missing her appointment. The store manager and the security guard are, therefore, the causes of Patty's missed appointments. According to the tort law in the United States of America, Patty can actively make a claim against Cash Mart and receive compensation on the same.
Question 2
After Patty is released from the store and is late for her appointment, she walks towards the parking lot to her car. At around the same time, Gerry is hitting golf balls in his backyard. He decides to break out his new driver and hits a golf ball out of his backyard to Cash Mart's parking lot. The golf ball hits Patty Plaintiff on her head and knocks her unconscious. According to the tort law in the United States of America, negligence is categorized as a type of torts. Usually, negligence occurs when an individual does harm to another person unintentionally, but as a result of a careless action, which fails to provide the duty owed to the other person. Therefore, Gerry's case of hitting Patty at the parking lot with the golf ball is treated as a case of negligence, and thus, Patty has the right to file a tort claim against Gerry for purposes of compensation.
The first element of the case of negligence against Gerry is an injury. While Gerry hits the golf ball in an attempt to break out his new driver and he accidentally hits Patty on the head, she is unconscious for five days. As provided by the tort law, Patty has the right to file a claim against Gerry for her head injuries that made her unconscious. In a court of law to test the negligence of Gerry in the case, a judge or a jury will have to have a negligence proof, which differentiates among the various types of tort such as intentional and strict liability torts from the negligence torts. Nonetheless, accidents to other people are the most common tort claims in civil litigations. Thus, Patty will be in a more favorable position to file claims of compensation for injuries against Gerry, who hit the golf ball out of his backyard to the parking lot at Cash Mart.
The other element of the tort claim that Patty would make against Gerry is causation (Wright, 1985). After Patty is released by the apologetic manager of Cash Mart and rushes to the parking lot to get into the car and rush her appointment, the golf ball hits her on the head, she is unconscious and cannot attend her appointment. Therefore, according to the tort law of the United States of America, Patty's unconsciousness that made her not to attend her appointment was caused by Gerry's golf ball, and therefore the latter caused the situation. That is to say that Patty can file a tort claim against Gerry to compensate her for the missed appointment that she was headed to at the time of being hit on her head with the golf ball. The scenario also made Patty absent from her workplace for the five days that she was unconscious. She has the right to file a tort claim against Gerry for hitting her with the ball and making her not to attend her work.
Question 3
After Patty recovers and goes back to work after five days, her supervisor at Acme Corporation reprimands her for using the company's email to inform her mother of her injuries. Acme Corporation prohibits the worker from using their work emails to send personal emails, which Patty violated after using her work email to inform her mother of the injuries that she got at Cash Mart's parking lot. Most of the organizations in the United States of America and the other countries across the globe do not guarantee privacy to an employee who uses the work email system to send a personal email to his or her friends and relatives. That is because the companies' emailing systems are connected to a server and monitored to ensure that the various aspects of the company are working effectively (Smith, 2001). The monitoring of the emails also ensures that safety and security are maintained at the workplace while unearthing the various malpractices that might be happening at the workplace.
According to Kalven Jr (1966), privacy is one of the most profound values of civilized society. Many legal professionals and researchers have revolved around the issue of privacy in line with the United States of America's tort law. However, the researchers and professionals do not seem to have reached a conclusion that provides for privacy in the use of work emails or the lack of it. Notwithstanding, several books and publications worldwide have sounded an alarm on the threats of surveillance in the modern world, especially with the increase in technology. Monitoring the emails of the workers of Acme Corporation from a single server exposes the company to a possible cyberattack. However, Kalven Jr, H. (1966) does not expound on the effects of malware on a company's server. That is to mean that the author does not take sides on whether the employees of a particular company should access their work emails privately or not. Thus, the law still holds that the employees should desist from sending personal emails using their company's emailing system.
While many employees such as Patty Plaintiff believe that with the click of the "delete" button, the personal email on the work email system goes, the servers of an organization retain the emails as documents (The Babcock Law Firm, LLC, 2019). The documents may be used against the employer in the case of a lawsuit. Therefore, the emails sent among the workers at the workplace, if sexually suggestive, for instance, may be used to accuse the employer of supporting sexual harassment at the workplace. Therefore, granting the employees their right to privacy while using their work emails for personal reasons puts the employer at legal risk (The Babcock Law Firm, LLC, 2019). Apart from legal reasons, modern organizations are monitoring the work emails of their employees to ensure that they are using their company time productively rather than idling while sending emails (Smith, 2001). According to Smith (2001), thus, Patty Plaintiff does not have the right to privacy while using the work email to inform her mother of the injuries she has sustained.
Question 4
After being confronted by her supervisor for using the work email to send a personal email to her mother, Patty is upset and makes disparaging comments against her boss, Barry Bossley, and Acme Corporation on social media. The next day she is fired from the job. Many states of the United States of America operate under "at-will employment." According to the US labor law, the at-will employment provides that an employer and the employee maintain a working relationship in which either party is free to terminate at any time (HG.org, 2019). The employer is, therefore, at liberty to terminate the employment of a worker without establishing the reasons for firing the employee. However, if the termination of the work is as a result of discrimination based on any grounds, the employer is said to have violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Patty's job, however, falls under the protected activities category. According to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), employees cannot be legally terminated while taking part in a "protected concerted activity." The protected concerted activity allows the employees to criticize and discuss their employers when it relates to working conditions and employment policies (HG.org, 2019). The protected concerted activity only covers the workers while they are talking to other coworkers in an attempt to solve their workplace issues. Legally, employees are allowed to band together and talk about their issues related to working conditions and employment policies. In the case of an employee who is venting on social media, the protected concerted activity does not cover them, as they do not meet the criteria of forming a union to address employment issues.
Therefore, Patty can legally be fired for venting about her boss and the company on social media by the use of disparaging comments. That is because she does not attempt to discuss her disinterest in the company's policies with her colleagues in a bid to unionize and present the issues to the management. Additionally, Patty paints a negative picture of her boss and the organization on her social media, which goes against the protected concerned activity (HG.org, 2019). The basis for firing Patty in the case of Acme Corporation is centered on her detrimental use of social media to present her issues rather than on any forms of discrimination. Thus, Acme Corporation will not have violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by firing Patty.
References
HG.org. (2019). Can You Get Fired for What You Post on Social Media? Retrieved from https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/can-you-get-fired-for-what-you-post-on-social-media-37948
Kalven Jr, H. (1966). Privacy in Tort Law--were Warren and Brandeis Wrong. Law & Contemp.
Probs. , 31 , 326.
Laws.com. (2017). Tort Law . Retrieved from https://tort.laws.com/tort-law
Smith, S. (2001, August 27). Email in the Workplace: Avoiding Legal Landmines . Retrieved from https://www.mediate.com/articles/smith.cfm
The Babcock Law Firm, LLC. (2019). Types of Torts and Examples of Tort Cases . Retrieved from https://www.injurylawcolorado.com/legal-library/tort-law-types.html
Wright, R. W. (1985). Causation in tort law. Calif. L. Rev. , 73 , 1735.
