Joseph Dillon married his high school sweetheart and quickly had two children. As his children grew, he remembered the toys he loved to play with when he was a boy. The key difference he noticed was that he played with wooden toys compared with the plastic toys that his kids now played with. For nostalgia sake he decided to try and buy some wooden toys. The process of finding wooden toys proved to be surprisingly difficult. Through the research he discovered some manufacturers in Germany and China. He decided to place and order and set up a website and sell some wooden toys to see if there was a demand for the products as there was clearly a gap in the market. He set up as a sole proprietorship and the first shipment of goods arrived and surprisingly sold out quickly. WoodenToys.com was born.

Over the next year the company steadily grew. Joseph secured some bank loans to buy more stock in order to keep up with demand. Sales continued to grow. He decided he needs to get further funding and managed to convince his father to invest part of his retirement savings into the company. Woodentoys.com became a limited partnership, with joseph as the general partner. Sales continued to grow and his wife gave up her part time job to work in the company full time, while joseph retained his full time job as an engineer. Just before Christmas they attended a toy fair in their home town to great success. The event doubled their online traffic on the run up to Christmas and they were sold out on many of their product lines.

After Christmas, Joseph quit his job to work in the company full time. Shortly after Christmas the first statement of claim arrived from some parents that claimed that the paint on some of the toys they had purchased from the company had made the son sick. Shortly after that 2 more arrived. It was the same toy that was listed as the cause of the illness in each case. Joseph investigated and discovered it was a toy from a company in china. Immediately he withdrew the toys from the website and had it tested. It turned out that the paint on the toy was indeed to be blamed, it would flake easily if water was applied and make a child sick in the process. Joseph hired a lawyer who filed a statement of defense on his behalf.

1. Explain 3 ways that wooden toys could defend the tort action that has been brought against them for the toys that is making children sick.?
2. Explain to Joseph why wooden toys should consider incorporating?
3. While at the toy fair, Joseph finds a phone left behind by a customer.What type of bailment has Joseph found himself in?
4. Explain to Joseph his responsibilities are under the law.
5. How should Joseph deal with a shop lifter to avoid sued?(