Breach of Contract
If you’ve ever made a commitment to do something, only for the other party to fail to hold up their end of the deal, you have been a victim of breach of contract. Put simply, a breach of contract is the failure to fulfill a part of a formal agreement. For a breach to be official, the agreement must be enforceable. Invalid or void contracts cannot be enforced, meaning neither party can file a lawsuit if it has been breached. If a contract has failed to be fulfilled, the court may impose certain consequences on the person or entity responsible for the breach.
There are a number of reasons why a contract may be breached. One of the most common situations is when a service has not been provided at all or has been provided very poorly. If you have hired a contractor to remodel a portion of your house , yet they have damaged the home and not fully completed the necessary work, you may be able to recover damages.
Failing to make a timely payment can also be considered a breach. If you make a deal with another party to split the profits of a business, yet they refuse to pay what they owe, they have breached the contract (unless there was a reason that made the contract invalid or impossible to fulfill).
If a company has breached a contract with you and you have suffered financially because of it, the next logical step is to hold them accountable. If you don’t know where to turn to find out if you have a case, consider speaking with an attorney.
Employment Conflicts
People might sue a company over a variety of issues related to their employment. The most common, however, revolves around wrongful termination. Sometimes a person is fired because of race, age, sex, religion or other discriminatory issues. In other cases, the termination itself might not be the issue, but rather the issue is how the person was treated leading up to the termination or during the termination process.
For instance, an employer might be attempting to weed out older workers in favor of younger ones, which can be a clear case of age discrimination. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 prohibits employment discrimination against anyone 40 or older in both the private and public sectors.
Another example is in a situation where someone is being sexually harassed at work. It can be easy to dismiss this behavior as inappropriate joking or a batch of bad comments. But if the comments are made on a regular basis, or the physical harassment – like groping – occurs frequently, that is clear-cut sexual harassment.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces federal laws against employment discrimination. The EEOC enforces several federal laws protecting employees from discrimination by employers or potential employers, including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972.
If you believe your rights are being violated on the job, you should not be afraid to complain to your supervisor or human resources department about the behavior you are experiencing. By doing so, you give the company an avenue to correct the problem before it becomes necessary to pursue legal action. If the company does not correct the perceived problem, you still have the option of filing a complaint with the EEOC if you believe you have been the victim of discrimination.
It is important that you document everything that occurs so you can have a detailed record of exactly what is happening and when it is occurring. If others have witnessed these events, or have been victimized as well, be sure to encourage them to document everything as well to help your case.
It is also important to note that the EEOC does not enforce any state laws regarding employment discrimination. For instance, laws vary from state to state to define the age at which someone is protected under the law. There are also state-specific laws regarding minimum wage, providing for greater employee rights and protections than federal laws guarantee.
Product Liability Issues
Products liability is a common reason victims sue a company. Companies that design and manufacture products have a general duty to keep dangerous or defective products off the market. The laws protecting victims when companies fail in that duty are called product liability laws.
If a company sells, markets, or distributes a product that is defective or dangerous in some way, consumers have much stronger claims if they get hurt using the product. Usually, the product either has a design defect that was itself dangerous, or it was manufactured with a defect that made it unsafe. Sometimes products are both badly designed and wrongly manufactured.
To win a products liability lawsuit, consumers usually only need to show that the product was bad and that the company should have known about the defect. When the company knew the product could hurt someone but put it on the shelves anyway, the victim gets an even easier case. Companies have a duty to warn consumers about known risks as well.
Product liability laws hold companies to a high standard because they have so much information about their products. In addition to knowing all about the materials used to make the product, they know how it will be used. Companies can be held liable for any harm the product caused if it could have been avoided with a reasonable effort to keep dangerous products off the market.
Intellectual Property Theft
Intellectual property laws give businesses the opportunity to sue companies. It’s important to note they might not be the only party being sued or be the defendant in any of the following examples.
Companies that violated patent rights can face infringement lawsuits, as patents are not always seen as how they were filed. When an infringement occurs, it can be difficult to assess the damages. A jury may be able to order the lawyer representing the inventor of that patent to give their opinion on how much money would be fair.
One of the most popular reasons a business will end up in a courtroom (or a settlement) is trademark. Trademark laws in the U.S. give companies the chance to pursue another business for violating its registered trademarks or utilizing a similar one when marketing their products.
Copyright infringement is another popular reason for when businesses will pursue another company in court. A company may pursue an issue based on how the other company might use their copyright for monetary profits. This applies to books, songs, music videos and sometimes movies.
Consumer Rights Violations
In today’s digital age and era of commerce, companies have a tremendous amount of access to consumer data, either through the web or by way of brick and mortar means. In addition to this knowledge, however, it is important to remember that companies have a number of obligations to consumers under state and federal law which create a foundation of consumer rights which must be followed. When you, as a consumer, believe that a company has violated your rights, there may be legal recourse.
Depending on the jurisdiction, certain general guidelines can be given in terms of common consumer rights and the corresponding legal claims which are available against violator entities. Such rights include (as mentioned in the title of this section) the prohibition of misinformation or inadequate information either through direct omission or control and the extent of hidden fees when companies advertise products or services . In addition, there are claims based on unfair trade practices as well as minimum requirements for health, safety and wellbeing (i.e. food poisoning or misrepresentation of services).
Although cases are context specific, one example of a very common consumer rights violation can be found within the context of advertising. Companies, for example, cannot blatantly lie about the capabilities of certain products. It is extremely important to note that partial truths are also not an excuse for language which is misleading in the context of the entire advertisement. Again, the most important aspect to remember is that no matter how large or small a company appears, the law gives citizens rights and avenues of compensation, should those rights be violated.
Negligence and Personal Injury Claims
Suing a business for negligence and personal injury is a legitimate reason to pursue legal action. Negligence is the failure of a company to exercise a level of care that an average person would exercise, resulting in personal injury or property damage.
There are specific factors that determine whether a business’s failure to exercise a reasonable level of care can be established in court proceeding:
- The existence of a duty (obligation) owed by the allegedly negligent business to the injured party.
- A breach of that duty by the allegedly negligent business.
- An injury suffered by the injured party that can be fairly traced to the negligent conduct.
- A close causal connection between the negligent conduct of the allegedly negligent business and the resulting personal injury (proximate cause).
An example of negligence may involve an employee of a grocery store who mops a grocery store aisle to remove spilled ketchup. The employee puts up a sign warning customers that the floor is wet. Additional customers slip on the ketchup spillage and fall to the floor. The store is liable for the injuries of the plaintiffs under the theory that it was negligent in inspecting and cleaning the spill.
Filing a personal injury claim against a business usually involves filing a negligence lawsuit or filing a premises liability lawsuit under a theory of negligence for harm suffered on property owned by the business. Negligence lawsuits filed against a company hold the company responsible for the harm suffered by the injured party.
The most common types of negligence cases brought against business entities include:
- Slip and Fall Cases (Premises Liability Cases). These cases involve injuries suffered by persons because of danger on the property of the business. For example, a person in a parking lot is hit by glass from a window that broke because the business failed to repair a fault in the window. Another example would be if a customer slipped and fell on a wet floor without warning signs to alert them of the hazard.
- Breach of implied warranty of merchantability. Under California law, products are implicitly guaranteed "fit for the ordinary purposes for which they are sold." These cases are often filed against manufacturing companies that make products that harm consumers.
- Suing for the negligent supervision of workers. This type of case holds the business entity responsible if a supervising employee failed to fire an employee who engaged in a violent act that resulted in injury to others. For example, a business may be held to task for not dismissing a worker who assaulted another co-worker resulting in injury.
Breach of Privacy
Businesses are privy to a trove of private information that consumers expect them to keep safe. Although the law does not impose any express obligation on companies to keep all information sealed, it does place safeguards for consumers through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and many other federal and, where applicable, state agencies. Breaching these privacy laws can open the way for litigation.
Over the years, companies have had their privacy protections under attack by hackers that penetrate otherwise secure data systems. In 2010, a massive data breach affected 77 million accounts through the gaming platform PlayStation Network, offending regulators around the world. Such breaches happened in other companies as well, and over the last few years, September’s iCloud breach showed us that the violation of consumer’s data is a worry for all businesses that keep company and consumer information on their servers.
Additionally, there are growing public concerns about government and corporate email often snooping on consumer movements, contacts and chatter. None of these practices are legally implicated, however, when companies take the right steps to secure their consumer’s data.
EMI Recording has been sued by Katy Perry, alleging that EMI wrongfully shared her private contact information with third parties. Companies can be penalized for violating consumer privacy with intentional misconduct.
When they violated a right to privacy interest, businesses will be liable. Legal liability can come without actual damages if there is a violated right to privacy interest, such as unwanted publicity or accusations. Moreover, common privacy violations may be grounds for a violation of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which was signed into law in California, allowing citizens more rights over how companies store and use their personal data.
Environmental Regulation Infractions
Many businesses face lawsuits for tumbling down the necessary road of complying with environmental standards. These claims range from pollution and failing to take proper measures to dispose of waste to other breaches against the Environment Protection Act 1986. The exact action that is taken up by a company will determine whether it can be eligibly slapped with an environmental law violation clause.
It fails to be highlighted that most environmental laws are addressed at a state level or extend on from broad legislation that has been put in place on a federal basis. For example , the EPA works in conjunction with the Clean Water Act to develop enforceable standards. Both must be followed in order to ensure a legal framework for waste disposal. Many companies have been found in breach of these strict following of both laws. The most common of which is polluting waterways. Some owners were seen to dig in nearby land (which later caused the riverbed to collapse) and dump logging equipment and other materials into the river.
Water pollution is one of the many types of environmental violations that are leading to a legislative response within the legal system. Here, the company is being hit with the burden of proof to signify it is adhering to environmental laws. Companies that are keen on avoiding this litigation should keep track of safe waste disposal procedures and continue to meet guidelines for the necessary environmental restrictions.