Although vicarious liability can be applied on the basis that a shareholder is an employee, its shareholder status renders there to be no agent-principal relationship. Thus, the organic theory is more relevant to employee shareholders, because shareholders are also seen as the organ of the company. For example, in R v Roffel (1984) 9 ACLR 433, the sole shareholder and director’s act of negligently stealing corporate funds were deemed to be the company’s act. Alternatively, courts can lift the corporate veil, which sets aside shareholder’s limited liability and imposes liability on a shareholder for the actions of the corporation. To illustrate is Stone & Rolls Ltd v Moore Stephens [2009] UKHL 39 where the sole director and shareholder defrauded banks without auditors noticing, resulting in the court to pierce the veil between the sole beneficial shareholder and its company and impute the shareholder’s fraudulent intentions to the company.
In the case of Harris v. Forklift Systems, the plaintiff, Teresa Harris, brought a Title VII action against her former employer, Forklift Systems, Inc., an equipment rental company. She claims that Forklift Systems had created a sexually hostile work environment. Harris had worked for Forklift as a manager from April 1985 to October 1987. A Judge heard the case and found that during the period of Harris’ employment, Forklift’s President, Charles Hardly, subjected Harris to numerous offensive remarks and unwanted sexual innuendos heard the case. Specifically, the court found that Hardy had, on a number of occasions, asked plaintiff and other female employees to retrieve coins from his front pants pocket, also asked them to retrieve objects that he had thrown on the ground in front of them and commented, using sexual
One of the most challenging element to prove a common law marriage is the clear intent to enter a valid marriage buy both parties, not just one party. As decided in Hargrave v. Duval-Couetil (777 N.W.2d 380), the Supreme Court of South Dakota concluded that to meet common law mariage requirements, the mutual agreement or declaration to marry would have to be more than an implicit agreement. In this case, the party failed to establish a clear intent to marry, and as a matter of law, Hargrave could not prove by clear and convining evidence that the couple entered into a valid comon law marriage. Q. Is common law marriage recognized in Massachusetts?
Specific Performance can be granted only by the court in the exercise of its equity powers, subsequent to a determination of whether a valid contract can be enforced exist and an evaluation of the relief sought. As a general rule, specific performance is applied in breach of contract actions where monetary damages are inadequate, primarily where the contract involves land and unique chattel. Damages for the breach of a contract for the sale of ordinary personal property are, in most cases, readily ascertainable and recoverable so that specific performance will not be granted. The advantage of this remedy is that, since it is an order of an equity court it is also been supported by the enforcement power of that court. If the defendant refuses to obey that order, she can be cited for criminal contempt and even imprisoned.
It also makes sure that there is a way for a will to be beneficial for a third party that is not mentioned on the face of the Will. The role equity plays in this scenario as well as its main purpose in law in general is to keep things fair. In this specific circumstance its paramount interest was to make sure to hinder the trustee form admitting fraud by not fulfilling his/her obligations to the third party, and the testator, by keeping whichever benefit for themselves instead of passing it on to the secret beneficiary. The basic issue with secret trust is the inability to justify it in certain circumstance. Whether it is a fully secret trust or a half secret trust this issue occurs.
This amounts to the abuse of the process. However in Brunsden v Humphrey (1884), the court agreed that different cause of action aroused even in the same incident on recovering damages of property and personal injury so the claimant was entitled with damages. There are two views in issue estoppel. The narrow view is set out in Randolph v Tuck [1962], considering different issues in this case in the matter of law. Therefore the defendant was not estopped to deny his responsibility.
Equal rights for all is a social agenda which clearly does not mean that law supports inequality rather it says that every human is created equal and the practices of discrimination that we are facing is because of the unfair treatment of one individual by another. Law itself is against the inequality in every field of life, in fact all humans are equal before law. But how certain practices of discrimination among the societies and people are violating the law equality is the major concern of this report. First equality and its concepts are explained and second the law of equality. Furthermore, social issue and a group of people as reference to equality concept are also explained in this
According to the rule in Foss v Harbottle (1843), the minority of companys member (depositor and debentures holder) had been constrain to sue or brought action to corporation, the majority of members, board of directors or companys director as the damage or loss was due to negligence of directors and majority of members who endure the identical loss and not with any type of advantage. (Choong & Sujata, n.d.). In the case of Pavlides v Jensen [1956], the plaintiff claims that the defendants (companys directors and corporation itself) sold the corporation owned mine underrate negligent, therefore the mistaken done require to be redress. Nevertheless, the action of plaintiff was not maintainable due to the judgment of selling the
The ‘common law position’ is a term that is used to describe the legal position should an issue not be addressed expressly in the contract or relevant statute. That is to say if the contract is ‘silent’ in regard to the specific issue. The common law position in regard to liability is that liability follows fault. It is typical in the upstream oil and gas industry to enter into a ‘knock-for-knock indemnity regime. A knock-for-knock indemnity regime is a contractual agreement whereby each party takes responsibility for their own personnel and property regardless of
Even though they were within one court system, both establishments were dealing with cases in their own individual ways. In the case of Patel v Ali , it was evident that equity exercises discretion, nonetheless this can be questionable. The differentiation between common law and equity is shown clearly in this case within the remedy that was offered, as mentioned before equitable remedy is discretionary whereas common law does not. The common law remedy proposed to Patel was to pay damages; due to the dilemma she was in had created unfairness, so using equitable remedies (specific performance) would have failed. “A trust is an equitable obligation binding a person (trustee) to deal with property over which he has control for the benefit of persons (beneficiary)…” .