Business Law: Tort and Duty of Care in Extortionate PLC Case

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of business law principles, specifically focusing on torts and the duty of care. It begins by defining tort law and the concept of duty of care, explaining how these principles apply to businesses. The report then analyzes a case study involving Extortionate PLC, assessing the company's liability for an injury sustained by a customer due to negligence. It examines the factors that establish a duty of care and determines whether Extortionate PLC breached this duty. Furthermore, the report explores the ethical considerations that banks owe to the public, including the importance of client screening, ensuring customer safety, and upholding public trust. Finally, the report discusses potential defenses that Extortionate PLC could employ to mitigate its liability, such as contributory negligence and assumption of risk. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of adhering to legal and ethical standards in business operations.

Business law
TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
Tort and the Duty of Care........................................................................................................................3
Whether Extortionate PLC is liable for Samantha’s injury......................................................................4
Ethical Considerations bank owe the public............................................................................................5
Possible defence for Extortionate PLC....................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
There are different laws that are form to run a business smoothly and these laws are
generally referred to as Business Law(Beatty, Samuelson and Abril, 2018). These laws helps the
business to have a clear understanding about how to start a new business, the ways in which it
have to be managed and the way different products and services will be sold in market. There are
different sets of rules and regulations that are coming in these laws and it is mandatory for the
business to follow the same. Present report will include about the Tort and the duty of care.
Further report will analyze whether the extortionate PLC is liable for Samantha’s injury or not.
Report will also evaluate the ethical considerations that Bank owes the public. Finally, report
will analyze whether there is any possible defence for this Extortionate PLC.
MAIN BODY
Tort and the Duty of Care
Tort is an English law with respect to which an individual may owe a duty of care to
another so that they can ensure that the person will not face any sort of harm or loss. If any such
harm or injury occurs, a legal liability is generally imposed to the respective tortfeasor so that
victim can get the compensation for the loss they have endured(Deakin and Markesinis, 2019).
The Duty of care refers to the different circumstances that are recognized by the law that
is legal duty of an individual to take care. If there is any failure to take care of the individual may
result in payment of damages that they have done to the party who is been injured due to their
breach of duty of care. It is therefore very important for the claimant to make the things clear and
establish their respective point that the defendant owed them a duty of care(Mitchell and et.al.,
2017). This law generally is based on the type of loss that claimant have suffered and different
legal tests are been conducted for different types of losses. It may be personal injury or a
property damage etc. and the court usually determines what duties are exactly owed by the
defendant and is generally referred to as the standard of care. There are some of the factors that
determine whether a duty of care was there or some negligence actions were there and these
factors are as following:-
 Foreseeability of damage and harm to the party that is been injured.

 The degree level at which the injured party is been suffering.
 The connection between plaintiff’s injury and the behaviour of the defendant.
 The associated cost, availability and risk that was involved and also the insurance of risk.
An organisation is required to take the required precautions in order to ensure about the
physical and mental wellbeing of the customers that are coming to them. In the case of
Extortionate PLC, the managers and top level staff members of the business are required to have
reasonable decisions for the workplace and there are many specialized tort situations to which
they are required a duty of care. This incident may have become more dangerous and it is the
responsibility of the bank to take care of the people and have actions that are reasonably safe in
the eyes of the law(Palombo, 2019).
Whether Extortionate PLC is liable for Samantha’s injury
From the case it is been clearly noticed that the Extortionate PLC is liable for the
Samantha’s injury as she tripped and fell down from the stairs due to the carpet that had come
from the sides. Not only this, there were many customers who got previously due to the same
reason and bank was so irresponsible that they did not worked for that and no safe actions were
taken. The customer got injured in her hands and that resulted in liability against the personal
injury of her. Extortionate PLC have mentioned and displayed on the notice board of their
business hall that it is their duty of care to work for the safety of their customers(Beatty,
Samuelson and Abril, 2018).
Under the doctrine of tort, the Extortionate PLC is liable for Samantha’s injury and have
a duty of care. From the different factors it is been analyzed that a duty of care was there due to
the negligence actions taken by the bank. The negligence of bank have resulted in foreseeability
of damage and harm to Samantha and although it was not a high degree of suffering to the party,
bank have to follow a duty of care at that point of time by paying the associated cost that was
involved for its cure. Another factor is that the bank did not responded positively for
understanding the problem and taking actions against the same as it was previously occurred to
other customers also. Bank is required to show a duty of care and have to pay the associated cost
with respect to the risk that Samantha has gone through(Hayashi and et.al., 2019)

Ethical Considerations bank owe the public
There are ethical considerations that banks owe to the public and the important one is
screening its clients. It is very important for the bank to ensure that the clients are financially
sound and are not using the services provided by the bank fraudulently. It is responsibility of the
business to stipulate ethical standards and bank is having obligation to conduct enough due
diligence. Not only this, the bank also works to ensure the safety of the customers and also
ensures the safety of returns for the depositors’ money. Bank is generally been run on the public
trust and moral values that they follow and a duty of care is among the one. There are numerous
bank failures and that affects the trust of the public towards the organisation. The Ethics should
dominate customer service and etiquette of the bank have to be the integral part of ethical
customer service(Climent, 2018).
United Kingdom banking law control the various activities of the bank and one of the
most important part that is supervised by these regulatory are the rights of customers that are
visiting the bank for an effective services. The rights of the customers are limited to a contract
and the customers are receiving limited protection from the banks. There are some rights like
consumer credit act 1974, which works on the unfair credit relationship and also includes interest
rates. Another one is consumer right act 2015 that is meaningful for the customers as it create
contrary to good faith among the public(Gower, 2017).
In UK the primary source to govern banking and financial service is the FSMA that is
financial services and markets act 2000 that implements sets of legislation and rules for
regulating the baking services. There are various authorities that are resolve and monitor
different operational disruption of the bank. Financial Ombudsman service FOS is having the
responsibility to handle the respective complaints from retail banking customers who are
dissatisfied with their services. The Financial service compensation scheme helps the customers
by ensuring that the compensation is paid to the eligible claimants from the failed banks that are
not able to provide effective services to them(Kane, 2018).

Possible defence for Extortionate PLC
Extortionate PLC can defend itself from duty of care by proving the four major
elements:-
 Contributory Negligence:- This generally occurs when the customer fails to take
reasonable precautions and resulted in injury. Bank can defend itself by making the
things clear that the customer could have avoided this injury if she had taken an
appropriate measure. It is necessary that the bank owed the plaintiff a legal duty of care
under the respective circumstances that is the bank have provided all possible care to the
customer as she got injured and worked to change the carpet so that no other customer get
injured in the same way(White, 2018).
 Comparative Negligence:- The comparative negligence reduces the change of duty of
care by showing the fault of customer for the respective incident that have resulted to her
injury.
 Assumption of risk:- Bank can take help of an experienced personal injury attorney in
order to consult with them and the attorney will clarify the exact elements of negligence
in order to defend the bank and providing an effective solution(Sylvester, 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above study it is been concluded that the Tort is a legal liability that is generally
imposed to the respective tortfeasor so that victim can get the compensation for the loss. On the
other hand duty of care is legal duty of an organisation to take care of an individual taking
service from them. Report also concluded that the Extortionate PLC is liable for Samantha’s
injury as previously also different customers got injured due to the same reason and made
complaint but the top management did not responded. There are various ethical consideration
that bank owe to public and it is responsibility of bank to provide effective services to its
customers. Finally report concludes that the Extortionate PLC can defend itself by following
various factors such as Comparative negligence, assumption of risk etc.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Beatty, J.F., Samuelson, S.S. and Abril, P., 2018. Business law and the legal environment.
Cengage Learning.
Deakin, S. and Markesinis, B., 2019. Markesinis and Deakin's tort law. Oxford University Press,
USA.
Palombo, D., 2019. The duty of care of the parent company: A comparison between French law,
UK precedents and the Swiss proposals. Business and Human Rights
Journal. 4(2). pp.265-286.
Mitchell, C. and et.al., 2017. Exploring the potential duty of care in clinical genomics under UK
law. Medical law international. 17(3). pp.158-182.
Beatty, J.F., Samuelson, S.S. and Abril, P., 2018. Essentials of Business Law. Cengage Learning.
Hayashi, K. and et.al., 2019. Summary of the Report of the Study Group on Legal Issues
regarding Central Bank Digital Currency (No. 19-E-3). Bank of Japan.
Climent, F., 2018. Ethical versus conventional banking: A case study. Sustainability, 10(7),
p.2152.
Gower, K.K., 2017. Legal and ethical considerations for public relations. Waveland Press.
Kane, E.J., 2018. Ethics versus Ethos in US and UK Megabanking. Journal of Financial Services
Research. 53(2-3). pp.211-226.
White, A., 2018. Perpetuating Injustice: Analyzing the Maryland Court of Appeals's Refusal to
Change the Common Law Doctrine of Contributory Negligence. Md. L. Rev.. 78.
p.1042.
Sylvester, A., 2018. Business Law: A Relevant Component of Technical Education. JL Pol'y &
Globalization. 73. p.96.