Business Law Assignment: Analysis of Strawbridge vs. Alfresco Catering

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the business law case involving Strawbridge vs. Alfresco Catering and a related employment law scenario. The report delves into contract law, examining the formation, breach, and remedies available, specifically focusing on a dispute over apple supply. It explores the legal principles of contract law, including offers, acceptance, consideration, and the implications of breach, such as repudiation and failure to perform. Furthermore, the report addresses an employment law issue where an employee, Silas, suffers a hand injury due to a faulty conveyor belt, analyzing the employer's duty of care, negligence, and potential defenses. The analysis considers aspects of tort law, including negligence of duty of care and breach of duty, and evaluates potential claims and defenses under employment law. The report concludes by discussing the legal responsibilities of both employers and employees, emphasizing the importance of safety regulations and adherence to contractual terms.

Business Law

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Question 1........................................................................................................................................1
Question 2........................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Business laws are analysed as framework that encompasses various rules and regulations
which are used to manage and control business operations. These are also considered as guide for
the business to control the unlawful activities that occurs under a contract. It relates with various
matters which are related with the commercial and common laws. Present reports is based on
analysis of case study Strawbridge Vs Alfresco catering. In the year 1970, as a result of UK
joining company has decided to ceased the production of apples. After some company has
revived its business of producing apples and started exporting its apples to their client AC. In
addition to this, it will explain.
Question 1
Contract law: It is an voluntary or the group agreement between the parties to contract that
usually creates promises as well as obligation for accomplishment of specific task within a
particular time duration. Agreement binding by the law becomes contract that usually creates
safe and secure contract under the law. Mainly there are two type of contract between the parties
such as Written and expressed. For making the contract enforceable or valid in accordance with
the law, there are some important aspects that needs to be considered.
 Offers must be there between the parties which states that exactly what needs to be
provided (Adam, 2017).
 Acceptance is required from the both the parties without any coercion and
misrepresentation to enable the contract enforceable by law.
 Valid consideration should be disclosed by the parties prior to formulation of contract.
 Parties in to contract should be competent as per contract law for example: Minor are nort
competent to perform the contract.
As per the given scenario, it is analysed that the Strawbridge has dealings with AC for a number
of years without any problems. Unlawful and reasonable sales and supply goods act section (13),
this law also applied applies in the case where the contract of sale is not analysed as severable
and the buyer has accepted the goods or the part thereof, the breach any type of condition will be
fulfilled by the seller which can be only treated as the breach of warranty and not as a ground for
rejecting the goods and treating the contract as repudiate.
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There are two kinds of agreement Bilateral and one-sided. In one-sided frame one gathering offer
guarantee to the next gathering and other gathering gives execution. Other than reciprocal
contract is the two way contract one gathering influence guarantee and other gathering to will
likewise make guarantee, for example, amongst Strawbridge and AC. They both influenced two-
sided contract in which drawbridge to guarantee to supply new apples to AC for the benefit of
fiscal terms . If there should be an occurrence of break of agreement both the gathering will
subject to pay the misfortune sum (Grundmann, 2003). Contract has rupture when one of the
gathering has neglects to perform as per the terms and conditions simply like amongst
Strawbridge and AC, in December AC declined to pay for the apples since they guarantee on the
Strawbridge to not sending the nature of apples. On the opposite side Strawbridge claim to AC
that, they as of now told before that apple would solidify this sort of apples. This is the false
concern and one additionally thing has clear that as per the agreement terms and conditions
Strawbridge having zero obligation for any imperfections in the provided. There are mainly two
kinds of breach of contract which can be responsible or cause from which the contract has been
breached, the contract is breached generally when failure, repudiation or sabotage has been
occurred.
Repudiation – This is a major kind contract breach, in this type of breaching a party declares that
it will not focus on completing the performance needed by the contract. This condition occurs
before the time period of contract accomplishment, on the other hand the clean party can sue or
claim against the party responsible for loss or damage. According to the present case AC refused
to pay for the apples before completing the task.
Failure to perform – According to the present case contract breach on party failed to perform the
activity which was written in the contract. There was no repudiation expressed which states that
the party failed to complete the task without any prior information given to another party (de
Silva, 2017)
Limitation period
An aggrieved party can take action against the other party before the end of the period
else the claim will be barred.
Due to mitigate
Under-influence
In case of breach of contract Strawbridge may adopt following solutions -
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Right to sue specific performance: This is determined to the right of suffering in order to sue
specific person that has breached the contract. As per the case, Strawbridge need to have right
sue AC ltd as per the case of any misrepresentation.
Right to sue for recession of parties: There are conditions in which they can sue other party so
as to make breach of contract within the period (Pirie, 2012).
Right to sue for injunction order: The law issued by court restrict the person in order to do a
particular thing that is known as injunction order.
Duty of care: Duty of care was owed by the individual to another order in order to make sure
that there is no harm in the future. In condition when harm occurs, then it is a breach of contract.
Compensation to victims needs to be given for the losses faced.
Exclusion clause: This occurs in minimising liability of the organization even in conditions
when there is breach of contract. These are required to be involved in contractual action at the
time when agreement was formed. There are many approaches in exclusion clause such as
common law, statutory controls.
Question 2
As per the given case scenario Silas is working under the firm as apple grader. Last
December due to technical errors machine has got stopped and due to technical errors, his hand
has conveyor belt machine. Due to this accident his fingers got damaged. It is the case in which
Silas has rights to file case against his employer. It is responsibility of both persons that to fulfil
their duties. Employer is responsible to prove safe environment to employees and workers are
responsible to follow instruction of higher authorities. If one made mistake and due to which
other gets loss then individual is not responsible for this mistake. In order to defend own self,
Strawbridge can take support of negligence of duty of care and breach of duty legal aspects.
Negligence of duty of care
As per the tort law it is responsibility of employees that to pay attention on their work
and follow reasonable care. Here claimant has to prove duty of care which has been breached by
the defendant (Bagley and Dauchy, 2011). Thus, in the present case it is the mistake of Silas that
he did not pay attention on error in the machine thus, Straw-bridge can defence him self in this
case. Donoghe v Stevenson 1932 is the good example of negligence of duty of care. It is the case
in which Donoghue has ordered companion ad has paid money for the same. The cafe has
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ordered this material from Stevenson. Thus, Donoghue is not able to claim against the opponent
defender. In the same case Strawbridge can defend own self that Silas was aware that there is
issue in machine thus, it was responsibly of him that to take care and do not put hand into the
machine. Thus, he is responsible for his loss thus, Strawbridge is not liable to pay compensation
for this accident (v Stevenson, 1932).
Breach of duty
Breach of study take place when one person fail to fulfil their duty towards other person.
In such situation the individual who have breach their duty is liable for negligence for the
personal injury of other. Tort law explain that in such condition defendant has breached the duty
towards the plaintiff thus, individual is liable for the punishment (Koehn, 2013). As in the
present case Strawbridge has hired number of people for checking grade or quality of Apples.
For that these workers use conveyor belt. It is responsibility of the owner that to provide highly
secure machines and techniques to its staff members so that no injury causes to them. But in the
present cause conveyor belt gets jammed and get stopped. Employees were informed that not to
use this machine. Thus, Strawbridge has informed his employees that do not use this machine
until it gets replaced with correct one. Thus, employer has fulfilled his duty of care. But Silas has
breached the duty and after getting information as well he used this machine which was
damaged. Thus, employer is not responsible for paying any kind of compensation to the Silas.
This breach of duty can work as defending part for the Strawbridge.
Claim of defendant
The case states regarding a grader, named Silas, whose two of the fingers got cut as he put
his hand in the conveyor belt when it got jammed. Strawbridge who tend to employs as number
of grader to check the quality of apples, out of which Silas was one of the appointed one. It was
noticed that sometimes conveyor belt, which is used to check the quality of apples, get jammed
causing the whole process to stop for some time. However, the same gets started after the
interval of few minutes. In such case, no action was taken by the management of the company to
get the conveyor belt exchanged or repaired (Hartono, 2014). However, a warning was given to
the workers and grader to not to try to unblock the conveyor and let it be in the condition in
which it already is. Contradicting to the fact, Silas tried to unblock the conveyor belt mechanism
due to heavy work load and supply of apples. In this duration, the conveyor belt automatically
started causing the cut to his fingers leaving his disabled (Storey, 2016).
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Analysing the case, it can be assessed that personal injury took place in the case of Silas and
hence he has right to take actions regarding Strawbridge due to negligence in his actions that was
initiated by the company. Another important aspect is related to warning that has already given
to the management to the workers that they must not touch the conveyor belt if it has got jammed
in between. Hence. He has right to get the claim under employee protection act where it is the
right of employee to ensure health and safety of the employees while they are working in the
factory. In such cases, the employer has right to ensure that the factory set up is effective enough
and workers are initiated with adequate safety measures. Hence, it is the right of Silas to sue the
management that is Strawbridge corporation for the practice he has performed by not getting the
machinery installation repaired if it was not working fine.
Certain defensive arguments can be raised by Strawbridge stating that he already gave
warning to the workers that they do not have to put their hand on the conveyor belt mechanism.
Moreover, statutory warning during the training was available Silas. Ignoring the same he
performed the activity that resulted in cut of finger. The statement can be proved to be enough so
as to ensure that adequate amount of arguments is put by Strawbridge (Hartono, 2014).
Moreover, it is not only the duty of management to ensure safety for its employees. In such
cases, it is also the duty of the employees to ensure that all the instructions that have come up
from the management are duly followed without failure. Those argument can work in the favour
of Strawbridge. However, assessing the factory incident, Silas may receive compensation for
getting injured during his worker.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adam, A., 2017. Adams: Law for Business Students. 9th Ed. Pearson Education Limited
Bagley, C. E. and Dauchy, C. E., 2011. The entrepreneur's guide to business law. Nelson
Education.
de Silva, C., 2017. Alix Adams, Law for business students Ewan MacIntyre, Business law. The
Law Teacher, 51(4), pp.527-529.
Grundmann, S., 2003. Consumer Law, Commercial Law, Private Law: How Can the Sales
Directive and the Sales Convention Be So Similar. Eur. Bus. L. Rev., 14, p.237.
Hartono, I., 2014. State-Business Relations in Post-1998 Indonesia: The Role of Kadin. Bulletin
of Indonesian Economic Studies. 50(1). pp.132-133.
Koehn, D., 2013. East meets west: Toward a universal ethic of virtue for global business. Journal
of Business Ethics. 116(4). pp.703-715.
Pirie, S., 2012. Legal and professional issues for the perioperative practitioner. Journal of
perioperative practice, 22(2), pp.57-62.
Slatter, F.F., 1977. Seat Belts and Contributory Negligence. Dalhousie LJ, 4, p.96.
Storey, D. J., 2016. Understanding the small business sector. Routledge.
v Stevenson, D., 1932. Appeal Cases, p 562.
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