John and Kathy started a bakery business a few years ago in their home in Boston. Massachusetts. John received a culinary degree from a reputable college, and Kathy received a business degree, majoring in accounting. When they started their business, they did all of their baking in their home and brought the products to local farmer's markets, fairs, and bazaars to sell. After about two years, they business was doing well, and they decided that it was time to expand and open a brick and mortar bakery in their hometown.

They hired Sue to help John with the baking so they could produce enough baked goods to fill their bakery shelves and still attend some farmer's markets on the weekends. John was known for his French Croissants, and he had a "secret" recipe that he shared with Sue so that she could make them too. Kathy kept busy working on marketing ideas and keeping the finances for the business in check. When the bakery business really took off, Kathy hired Tim to help her with some bookkeeping. Every Monday morning, one of Tim's duties was to bring the cash receipts from the store and the farmer's market sales to the bank to deposit into the company account.

In May 2019, John won a statewide baking competition with his croissants. His sister Christine was furious when he won because she claimed that the recipe he was using was hers originally and she should have been the one to win the prize. She was so angry that she wrote a letter to the local newspaper's editor claiming that John's croissants were not homemade but were actually bought from a bakery in New York City.

Fearing that John may lose the bakery business because of his fight with Christine, Sue left the bakery and started working for a competing bakery in Boston. Before she left, she took a picture of the croissant recipe with her, and she offered to start baking the croissants at her new place of employment. Sales did indeed decline because of the article in the newspaper, and soon Kathy told Tim that she needed to cut his hours back to part time. Tim left the business stating that he needed to be working full time. Right after he left, Kathy did a quarterly audit of the financial statements, and she found $2,500 shortfall in cash that must have occurred in the last 90 days because the quarterly audit done four months earlier showed no discrepancy.

John was now doing all of the baking himself, but his heart wasn't in it like it once was. Instead, his head was filled with thoughts of how things went wrong and how he would keep the business afloat. The Chamber of Commerce in Boston contracted with John to provide 1000 croissants for a Chamber breakfast, and John was thrilled when he got the order. He stayed up all day and night to bake the croissants. After the breakfast meeting was over, John received a call from the Chamber President stating that that five people at the breakfast had found small shards of metal in their croissants and that three of them had to go to their dentist to repair a damaged tooth. A week later, John received a call from his business attorney telling him that the five injured people filed a lawsuit against the bakery.

To make matters even worse, Boston experienced a freak early snowstorm in late October. John was home with the flu, and Kim, a part-time bakery assistant, was tasked with opening the shop that day. Kim opened the shop on time but forgot to put any ice melt on the sidewalk in front of the shop when she unlocked the door and turned on the "OPEN" sign. Mrs. Clark came walking down the sidewalk and slipped and fell right outside the door. Kim had to call an ambulance to take Mrs. Clark to the hospital and later learned that Mrs. Clark broke her hip and needed to have surgery. Mrs. Clark's husband called the bakery demanding to talk to John or Kathy and told Kim that they would be hearing from his lawyer about Mrs. Clark's medical bills!

At this point, John and Kathy made an appointment with their attorney to discuss some of the unfortunate events that have been happening at the business. You are a legal assistant at the law firm and are asked to do some preliminary fact gathering and research on the case.

Question 1:

Identify three legal issues from the scenario.

1.

2.

3.

Question 2:

Address the following for the first legal issue you have identified:

• Is the issue a tort or a criminal issue?
• Describe the tort or crime.
• Who committed the wrongdoing?
• Who can bring a legal action about the wrongdoing and what will they have to prove to prevail?
• What is the law regarding legal issue in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?

Question 3:

Address the following for the second legal issue you have identified:

• Is the issue a tort or a criminal issue?
• Describe the tort or crime.
• Who committed the wrongdoing?
• Who can bring a legal action about the wrongdoing and what will they have to prove to prevail?
• What is the law regarding legal issue in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?

Question 4:

Address the following for the third legal issue you have identified:

• Is the issue a tort or a criminal issue?
• Describe the tort or crime.
• Who committed the wrongdoing?
• Who can bring a legal action about the wrongdoing and what will they have to prove to prevail?
• What is the law regarding legal issue in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?

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