LAW1702 Business Law: A Case Study of Negligence Against Starbucks

This case study examines a negligence lawsuit against Starbucks in Ontario, where a teenage girl sued the company for failing to ensure her safety after being injured by scalding hot water. The analysis focuses on the four elements of negligence: duty of care, breach of duty, causation, and foreseeability, arguing that Starbucks breached its duty of care, leading to a foreseeable injury. Furthermore, the case study assesses the company's risk management plan, finding it lacking and proposing a four-step risk management process, including identification of legal risks, evaluation of risks, development of a risk management plan with employee training and social media engagement, and implementation of these plans into company policy to prevent future accidents. The study concludes that Starbucks was vicariously liable for the negligence of its employee.

Running head: BUSINESS LAW
Business Law
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Negligence Analysis........................................................................................................................2
Risk Management Plan Assessment................................................................................................3
Source of the Article and other References.....................................................................................5

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Introduction
A teenage girl, Abigail Sataur from Ontario has sued Starbucks claiming that the
company and its employees have failed to take reasonable care to ensure her safety. It has also
been held by the plaintiff that the company has failed to take measures to prevent the injury,
which was foreseeable. The plaintiff claimed general and special damages of $1 million from the
defendant (Adriano, 2019).
In such case, the court in general evaluate the essential elements of negligence that
comprise of the duty of care of the defendant and its breach of such duty which has given rise to
an injury which was foreseeable. The court also takes into account the active risk management
strategy of the company that is meant to prevent the risks that the company may face (Luntz et
al., 2017).
Negligence Analysis
Under common law, negligence is established when a person who has a duty of care
towards another and he has failed to carry out such duty and it has caused a severe injury or loss
to the other person. It is also considered that whether the injury or loss was foreseeable by the
tortfeasor or not. In this case:
1. Starbucks had a duty of care towards its customer, Abigail for ensuring her safety in the
store while she was in the store.
2. The company certainly breached its duty of care as the employee did not take
precaution while serving her scalding hot water.

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3. The scalding hot water was spilled on Abigail’s hand and caused her permanent injury.
4. It can be assessed that the causation of the damage or injury was foreseeable as the
employee was serving scalding hot water and should have adopted necessary precautions
while doing so as it is quite reasonable that it was risky to handle such hot water which
may cause injury if spilled.
Therefore, it can be opined that this constitutes an act of negligence on the Starbucks
employee’s part, which makes the company vicariously liable for the negligence of its employee
(Adriano, 2019).
Risk Management Plan Assessment
In this context, the company does not seem to have a Risk management assessment plan
and therefore an appropriate plan needs to be implemented (Doherty, 2000). Following the four
step risk management process:
1. Identification of legal risk: failure to carry out precautionary measures while serving hot
beverages to customers lead to legal consequences.
2. Evaluation of risk: Different risks needs to be evaluated differently. In this context, the
brand image of the company would be affected due to the severe accident.
3. Risk Management Plan: the company must:
 Learn from its past crisis
 Deploy strategic plan to avoid such accident of spilling scalding water on a
customer.
 Give proper training to the employees
 Embrace social media and promote customer safety plans

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4. Implementation: the above-stated risk assessment plans should be incorporated in their
policy and lay down certain guidelines for the customers and to the employees for
avoiding future accidents.

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Source of the Article and other References
(Source of the Article)
Adriano, L. (2019). Ontario’s top court approves lawsuit against Starbucks. Retrieved from
https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/ca/news/professional-liability/ontarios-top-
court-approves-lawsuit-against-starbucks-88951.aspx
Doherty, N. A. (2000). Integrated risk management: Techniques and strategies for managing
corporate risk. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Luntz, H., Hambly, D., Burns, K., Dietrich, J., Foster, N., Grant, G., & Harder, S. (2017). Torts:
cases and commentary. LexisNexis Butterworths.