QUESTION SEVEN:

You are the President of Sells-A-Lot, Inc., and a privately-held company that operates a substantial manufacturing business.You have four manufacturing facilities, each of which operate three shifts.Your company has a total of 700 employees, most of whom work on the production lines in the manufacturing facilities.

Your company employs a Director of Safety, Joe Besafe, who has approached you with the request that the company approve the installation of automatic external defibrillators in each of the plants.

A.Joe Besafe asserts his belief that your company will be negligent if it fails to install the automatic external defibrillators in each of the plants and make those available for the safety of employees.Please analyze the risk to the company with respect to claims of negligence if the company does not install the automatic external defibrillators, and also if the company does install the automatic external defibrillators.

B.Sells-A-Lot, Inc. did, after considerable analysis, make the decision to install the automatic external defibrillators in each of its plants and conducted extensive training courses with employees so that there was at least one employee very qualified and capable of utilizing the equipment on each shift of the plant operation.On January 15, Bob Worker was on duty, was performing strenuous activities on behalf of Sells-A-Lot, Inc. and suffered a heart attack.Sally Helpful is the person that had been trained by Sells-A-Lot, Inc. to utilize the automatic external defibrillators on the shift during which Bob was working.However, on the day of Bob's heart attacking, Sally was out sick and there was no one to assist Bob using the automatic external defibrillators.Instead, the 911 emergency line was called and county paramedics arrived at the plant approximately 13 minutes later.During that time, however, Bob suffered sever irreversible injuries. Is the Company liable to Bob for those injuries?