Introduction to business law assessment
Business law
Bachelor in International Business
Juan Pablo Medina
A405420
Year 1
April 13, 2014
I hereby declare that this assignment is my own work and understand if there is any suspicion of plagiarism my work will be referred to Disciplinary committee. This may result in the exclusion of my course.
To analyse this scenario properly we must state and determine the facts of it. On the presented scenario, we have international events planner Leon Musk, who owns “The Party Factory” event. The party, which takes place across Europe, is managed under the Alto Clef logistics group. They are in charge of organizing the party in five different European locations, for five hours each night, from 20:00hrs to 1:00. This contract is based on basic rules of contract law, containing specific terms, warranty, and conditions not stated in the scenario given, and useful for solving the conflict. The only clause that appears states: “By way of liquidated damages, the sum of £500,000 shall be payable by Alto Clef in the event of non-appearance/failure to complete a performance or for any damage to the premises or property used by the The Party Factory.
During London’s event, hosted at the Oxygen Centre, wrong and neglectful acts, from both parties, caused the police to terminate the event at 1:20 am. It all started at 17:00, at the time there was a lot of commotion at the entrance of the venue, causing the queuing system to get out of hand. Claims were made stating Barry, the party’s doorman, used unreasonable force when trying to maintain order and caused injuries to the fans. Due to the commotion, entrance was blocked until 21:00. Then Alto Clef arrived late to the event at 21:30, due to some unforeseeable circumstances not informed by the events team to them. At the time they arrived, only 10% of the fans were at the venue. Mr.Musk decided to delay the presentation, since they haven’t sold the quantity of tickets he desired. Finally, the show started at 22:20, but then one of the performers collapsed during the presentation, causing the show to be delayed another half hour. Since she couldn’t perform, a friend named Brihanna replaced her. Her performance was great, but this brought more issues to the management group. She decided to walk off the stage, after the fans started to record the presentation instead of enjoying. This was the cause of Brihanna disappointment, and subsequent action of leaving the stage. Brihanna’s action led to Mr.Musk anger, thus he considered it a breach of the contract between him and Alto Clef. After that the gig continue until 1:20 when the local residents had enough, since they believe late night partying is a civil wrong and that The Party Factory was violating its license. Afterwards the party was stopped, causing the fans to request a refund, start a riot and do considerable damages to the Oxygen centre.
In this scenario, there are various issues to be discussed. In all of them Alto Clef or The Party Factory represented by Mr.Musk are involved. So let’s analyse them one by one.
The first one would be the use of unreasonable force used by Barry when trying to maintain order at the entrance of the event. This is a tort against the fans, who may press charges against Barry for assault or battery. The case here would be Fans vs Barry. This was the action that started all the chaos on that night. The law states that for assault to occur a person must have and show the intention to harm the other physically or emotionally. Meanwhile for battery is the same as assault but there must be direct contact between the parties involved (Thefreedictionary,2014). The fans would probably sue Barry for battery since Barry had the intention push between them, therefore the mens rea in this case exists, and it is up to the fans to prove it. They may intend to seek any kind of compensation or if the injuries are severe press criminal charges. This is possible since battery is part of both civil and criminal law(Legislation.gov.uk,2014). The most reasonable defence for Barry is the performance of duty defence (Elliot and Quinn,2001). Barry may argue that the use of reasonable force was necessary when trying to maintain order at the event, if not worst things could have happen. As demonstrated on Faulkner vs Talbot, 1981(Bailli.org,2014) case, any intentional touching of another person without the consent of that person may result in Battery. Then the fans must provide evidence showing the relationship between Barry’s actions and their injuries.