What liability is there for a company whose genetic modifications make their way into originally non-modified crops? Assume that a company has created genetically modified crop plant. A farmer purchases some seed from this company and plants this seed in his field. Somehow, that genetic modification jumps species and gets picked up by crops in neighbouring fields whose owners do not want this particular modification. Assume that this causes an injury-in-fact. What liability would the company have to the injured owners?
Maybe, but it is not an easy thing to do. See MARSH v BAXTER [2014] WASC 187. To be successful the plaintiff would need to prove a failure to observe a duty of care (which would be difficult if regulations on GM crops had been followed) and some actual damage flowing from it.
There is no real answer to that question at this point. If on filed such a suit, it would probably be under a negligence theory. You would sue: Forbes, because they're the website the user visited? The ad network that provided a vector for infection and didn't properly check their content? The makers of the ad, because they made the ad with malicious intent? and anyone else who might have been negligent. You then have to prove they were negligent. Can the user sue the responsible party for damages? You can sue anyone for anything. The problem is winning. Does it make a difference whether the user has taken due diligence with software updates and patches? It might. Contributory negligence would be an obvious defense to such a suit.
In the absence of a contractual agreement saying otherwise, the lawsuit would probably just be subject to normal rules of tort liability. In that case, the contractor would probably lose his case unless he could prove that the one worker infected another through an act of negligence or could otherwise prove that the infected worker knew he was infected and posed a risk to others. In the basic negligence situation, the contractor would likely rely on the general duty we all have to avoid creating unreasonable risks of injury to third parties, and he would need to argue that Worker A somehow breached that duty. Coming to work knowing you're infected would almost certainly satisfy that standard, but it might be enough to simply show that Worker A was at a large gathering of unmasked people whose vaccination status was unknown. From there, he would also need to prove that breaching that duty caused him some injury, presumably by infecting Workers B through M, causing a work slowdown, causing missed deadlines, causing late fees, etc. The contractor might also pursue a claim for reckless, rather than negligent, conduct, if Worker A knew he was infected and came to work just the same. Or he might pursue an intentional tort claim if there was some reason to believe that Worker A was actually trying to get other people sick, as opposed to just ignoring the fact that such a risk existed. As I understand it, several states have also passed laws limiting liability for exposure to COVID in the workplace, so it's possible that none of these claims would be viable, no matter how strong the evidence.
Insurance is regulated at the state rather than the federal level in the United States, and the terms of individual insurance contracts also matter. Most states prohibit insurance of intentional unlawful acts as a matter of public policy, either under common law doctrines or under express statutes or regulations. The public policy is that no one should be insulated from liability for their own intentional acts. And, in insurance policies for individuals who are not employers, this is typically accomplished with an intentional acts exclusion in the language of the policy. (Negligent acts are almost always insurable. The status of acts that constitute gross negligence, willful and wanton conduct, reckless conduct, or bad faith conduct, varies somewhat from state to state.) But, the situation is muddier when the insured is an employer or an entity. It frequently is possible for an employer or entity to insure itself against unauthorized misconduct by employees or officers or directors who are breaching their duties to the employer or company, rather than carrying out the official policies of the company. Factories don't knowingly do anything. People in or connected to factories do things and know things. And, if a factory employee is cutting corners in violation of his job responsibilities and that hurts the company, that could be an insurable risk. But, if a factory employee is acting in accordance with the directions of the CEO and Board of Directors in causing the factory to emit waste violating the law, and if the people giving him orders known that this violates the law, then this is probably not an insurable loss of the company as a matter of public policy. Another complication involves the question of who is insured. The Town of Greenfield may be able to legally buy insurance that compensates it for the costs of having to deal with intentional environmental law violations by factories undertaken as a matter of corporate policy in the town, even though the corporation couldn't buy this insurance. Indeed, the Town could even impose a tax on the corporation that requires it to pay the premium on the Town's insurance policy. But, this wouldn't relieve the corporation of liability or violate public policy because the insurance company would have a right of "subrogation" to sue to owner of the factory to reimburse it for the full amount of any claims that it had to pay to the Town. This is true even if the corporation and the responsible individuals in the corporation are, in fact, judgment proof or bankrupt, so that the subrogation right is actually meaningless in fact. It is also probably legal for a company to "self-insure", i.e. to set aside reserves of its own money to pay for it violations of the law in the future without regard to intent, and to have administrators employed to process payment in those situations, because then it is not actually insulated from harm for its own wrongdoing. But, this is risky because a policy of condoning illegal conduct could subject the company to punitive damages and sanctions in addition to compensatory damages. It also matters what kind of harm the insurance policy pays for. It would not be illegal, in almost any state, to issue an insurance policy that pays for a criminal defense lawyer for someone who is accused of a crime. But, it would be illegal in almost every state to issue an insurance policy that pays for fines and court costs and restitution imposed as punishment for committing a crime. Paying for a criminal defense lawyer, or a bail bond, at a time when you are presumed innocent, is not a form of punishment and hence is an insurable expense.
Can I sue If I was served a real burger after requesting a veggie burger I agree that this inquiry significantly overlaps with the post of which this one is marked by NuclearWang as possible duplicate. Thus, the answers (such as why breach of contract is inapplicable) and comments provided there largely apply here. I will only address the slight differences. I walked up to the cashier and asked was this a veggie burger? He said no. I stated that it was I ordered. He said he would make a new burger. A claim of fraud would fail in court because you will be unable to prove that the restaurant knowingly misrepresented to you (that is, despite knowing it to be false) that it was serving you a veggie burger with the intention that you would rely on that representation. Two hints indicate that the restaurant didn't act with that fraudulent intention: (1) When asked, the cashier told you that yours was not a veggie burger; and (2) he promptly indicated his intention to mend their mistake by telling you that he would make a new burger. A claim of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED) would also fail. You wrote: After we left, my daughter who was still in the restaurant stated that they started laughing at my husband and I. The fact that the employees waited till you and your husband left reflects that they refrained from intentionally inflicting any emotional distress. A significant factor that will favor them is the fact that they stopped laughing once your daughter asked them why they were laughing: My daughter asked why were they laughing, when her parents were in the car sick from eating meat. They stopped laughing. Even if you genuinely feel disrespected by their subsequent laughter, there are no legal remedies because their laughter insofar an expression was neither obscene nor disparaging nor threatening/harassing. Laughter can be an understandable way, and possibly a psychological need, to relieve the stress from a situation like this in a context of hours of hard work in exchange for low wages with which to pay their bills. Moreover, the same fact [that they waited till you and your husband left] contradicts the allegation that they laughed "at" you. Strictly speaking, the restaurant could viably sue your daughter for defamation if the restaurant incurs any losses (including court-ordered sanctions against the restaurant) as a result of falsely attributing to it the hostile or belittling behavior implied by the particle at. By this I intend to illustrate how certain actions under pretext of extreme "sensitivity" can backfire. People elsewhere are victims of much worse misconduct or offenses that have detrimental effects and long-lasting ramifications. The court system is --if only in theory-- intended to redress wrongs which are more serious than a mistaken order at a burger restaurant.
The legal issues are too black and white to have any meaningful impact on an ethics discussion. The IP belongs to A and B can't use it. A's not planning to build a product around the patent is irrelevant to the law and I do not see it bring up any ethical issue, but some people who do not understand patent law might. There might be ethics issues if A hired Josh with the specific plan to fire him as soon as the application was filed and intentionally misled him about these plans. Another issue might be Josh's duty to not disclose A's confidential information (the application does not become public right away), and Josh's duty to not draw B into developing an infringing product.
The store is, as far as i can see, not using the trademarked image to sell their cake. Your family does not intend to sell anything at all. This photo, from the description, could not reasonably be confused with an official image from the trademark holder. (all of this is based on your description, of course). Therefore, the trademark holder probably won't sue for trademark infringement, even if they somehow heard of this event, and if they did sue, they would quite likely lose. You would be making a copy of a presumably copyrighted image. You might have an active defense, but that is very hard to be sure of in advance. (Note that "fair use" is a very specifically US legal concept, and would not apply in the UK. The roughly comparable concept is "fair dealing" but that is more restrictive, and follows somewhat different rules.) In any case, it is possible that the rights holder would sue, and if the situation were a bit different (the was only one person pictured, making the shirt with the protected image very prominent, for example) there might be a larger chance of such a suit being successful. No business is going to want a bakery department manager deciding whether a particular use of a particular image does or does not infringe IP rights, and whether it does or does not expose the business to significant risk. Just to get an opinion from their lawyer on whether this image infringes would probably cost them several times the price of the cake with image printing. The store has no doubt written its guidelines to err well on the side of caution, because one suit, even if they won, would cost far more than the profits of many cakes, and if they lost, could have a very negative effect on their bottom line indeed. The store is entitled to restrict what business it does to keep itself safe from lawsuits. It is going to keep well on the cautious side, in all likelihood, and so it should. I fear you will have to find a store with a different policy, or use a different picture.
Rob is responsible. No Bull! Around the world, the law of wandering cattle depends on the details. New Zealand is no different. This case is covered by s 26 of the Impounding Act of 1955, Damages for Trespass. As you said, S 26(1)(d) says Bob is entitled to damages whenever his &quot;land (whether fenced or unfenced) is situated in a city.&quot; This is different to the rest of the country, where animals must be fenced out. S 26(2) of the Impounding Act says the damage is owed by Rob, as the owner of the stock: (2) In any case where damages are payable under this section the amount of any damage shall be recoverable by action from the owner of the stock. It may be that Rob and Alice have some arrangement that Alice will indemnify Rob against any trespass damages. But that agreement does not change the underlying law; it only allows him to recoup his loses (by suing his mother, if necessary!). Added: Something fun to read Law professor Robert Ellickson studied how people actually resolve disputes over wandering cattle in Shasta county in northern California. There's a readable summary of what he found here. (The title of his book, &quot;Order without law,&quot; sums up his main finding -- there are rules that are enforced, but those rules have little to do with the formal law or law enforcement.)