Over the course of the year following Dan Prices April 2015 announcement, he was embroiled in a legal battle with his brother Lucas, co-owner of Gravity Payments.9 Lucas Price sued Dan, claiming that his brother had violated the 2008 agreement governing the ownership and management of the company. Under the terms of that agreement, Dan owned 67.5 percent of the company, and Lucas stepped away from what had previously been his day-to-day involvement in the company. Lucas sued, in part, because he says his brother had failed to involve him even in very major decisionsincluding the decision to change how much Gravity workers were paid. The lawsuit also claimed that Dan was paying himself too much. Court documents showed that Dan had tried to get his own total compensation raised to $5.5 million, which amounted to more than half of the companys total revenue. At the time of writing, the judge in the case had agreed to the two brothers request to be allowed to attempt to resolve their problems out-of-court, through mediation.

questions

1. Dan Prices decision to pay Gravity employees more required spending some of the companys profits. Did this violate the rights of his brother, Lucas, given that Lucas wasnt consulted first?

2. Dan Prices announcement that he would himself be taking a substantial cut in pay (to pay for part of the raise his employees would be getting) came just two weeks after he learned that his brother was suing him. Does that change your assessment of the ethics of his decision to shift most of his own compensation to his employees?

3. Using the vocabulary of virtue ethics, how would you describe your original impression of Dan Price? How would you describe him in light of the information on this page?