You, who have earned an MBA, and your sister, Nanci, who is a doctor, have owned and managed a call center, Medical Calls R Us, which specializes in providing telephone advice and answering machine services to medical providers. You and youralthough you also have a few other clients. In this business, you contract to answer patients' telephone calls requesting appointments, ask callers questions to direct them to the appropriate medical services and refer after-hours calls to the appropriate medical providers. Many similar call centers in the area have come and gone. You credit your success to your ability to provide excellent responsiveness to calls, maintain long-term contracts through continued personal service to doctors and medical facilities, and deliver comprehensive service through consistent feedback and responsiveness to clients' concerns. Medical professionals rely a great deal on your company's discretion and training to ensure safe, effective medical advice and recommendations for their patients. You see that there is a need to expand with the increasing numbers of appointments by telephone, online and by virtual services. You would need to upgrade your telephones, wireless access and purchase other equipment in order to accomplish that expansion. At this point, it would be challenging to find the money to expand. In your 10 years of operation, Medical Calls R Us has had two medical malpractice claims filed against it. The first claim, for $100,000, Medical Calls R Us was one of many defendants, including the hospital, the doctor who did the surgery for the plaintiff, all the nurses there at the time and the medical office where the surgeon held office visits. That suit was settled by the doctor's insurance for $20,000. The second claim, for $250,000, was filed by a doctor who claimed inadequate notification about a patient who needed relatively immediate medical attention. You defended that lawsuit by providing a transcript of the call where your employee clearly told the patient to call 911 if in immediate need of medical care. You also provided records that showed your employee immediately called the doctor and left a message. You settled that lawsuit with the doctor for $5,000. You and your sister paid all settlements out of pocket rather than filing insurance claims. You have kept costs down through your ability to recruit workers who are multi-lingual and who have been willing to work for $19-$23 per hour. You also have a relatively robust bonus program. Workers who receive good evaluations from your medical clients receive bonuses. Those bonuses are provided twice per year and can range from $4,000-$6,000. Nearly every employee receives at least the minimum bonus every six months. Eight supervisors and managers earn the equivalent of $40 per hour. Your annual business profit after expenses is approximately $2,750,000. All ninety-nine employees who answer the phone in your company are women. Most count English as their second, or even third, language. 75% of those employees have been with your company for 5 years or more. The eight supervisors and managers that you've hired have worked for you since you the company. They have not come through the ranks. Instead, these managers started as college graduates who earned their MBAs at Fresno State after having worked for your company. You paid half their tuition and fees for their MBAs. All of the supervisor and managers are male. You have had little need to fire or discipline employees. Several years ago, during a particularly busy time, you skipped the usual hiring process and hired four employees' relatives. What you didn't know was that two of them, Cassandra and Henry had criminal records, both for Medicare fraud. One, Juanita, was also convicted of wire and computer fraud. They still work for you.

1. Medical Calls R Us is a partnership. What are some advantages and disadvantages to operating this type of business as a partnership?

2. After learning about the criminal convictions of Cassandra and Juanita, you decide to review their calls and emails to look for any evidence of fraud. You do not do the same for Henry because you believe that he is genuinely repentant about his conduct. Cassandra and Juanita learn of your additional surveillance of their work and sue you for gender discrimination arguing that you have created a hostile work environment. They support their claim with evidence that you employ only men as supervisors and managers and that you didn't conduct additional surveillance of Henry's work. Explain what constitutes gender discrimination and explain whether you are liable for gender discrimination.

3. What would you recommend as the best business form for Medical Calls R Us to continue operations? Explain your response. In that explanation include identification of issues that could result in personal and business liability and how such liability could be limited.