Business Law Test 1
Terms
undefined, object
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- What is law?
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*Principles applied by courts
*Enforcable rules that govern relationships among individuals and between individuals and the government or society - Social control
- Exists to control and influence our behavior
- Justice
- A goal of law is to be administered in a way that is fair and right
- Jurisprudence
- The philosophy of law. The theory of how and why law should develop.
- Natural law
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*The idea or principle that humans have certain fundamental rights
*One of the oldest schools of thought
*Declaration of Independence - Positivism
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*Law is law and exists because legislature says so
*Natural rights exists because of law - Historical
- *Look to the past; Use doctrines as a basis to shape present law
- Legal realism & the Sociological School
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*Belief that law is shaped by social forces and needs
*Law should be a tool to promote justice
*Judges should take individuals into account - Economic school
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*Cost/benefit analysis
*Is it economical to sue? - Ethics and the Legal Environment
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*The study of what constitues right and wrong behavior
*Actions can be legal, profitable but not ethical - What does "legal" mean?
- There is no law regulating the behavior
- Constitutions
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*A charter that expresses both the power of govn't and the limitations of govn't
*U.S. Constitution - Statutory law
- Laws that are enacted by legislative bodies, such as Congress
- Administrative law
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*State and federal agencies that have the power to regulate certain areas of the law
*OSHA, IRS - Case law
- The rule of law announced in case devisions by judges (common law)
- Common law
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*Developed by England; used by the US
*Judges apply rules and principles from earlier cases
*Interprets a statute - Civil law system
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*Primary source of law is statutory code
*Law is rule driven
*Napleonic Code - Civil law
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*Regulates the relationship between individuals
*A private wrong - the party that was wronged is seeking a remedy - Criminal law
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*Relationships between individuals and society
*The harm is to the public based on the conduct of the defendant - Substantive law
- The laws that define, describe, regulate and create rights and duties
- Procedural law
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*The rules for enforcing rights
"Rules of the game" for individuals substantive rights - Stare decisis
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*"Let the decision stand"
*Fundamental principles of our common law system
*Gives law a predictability - What is a "case of first impressions"?
- When a situation is brought to court for the first time
- What are 3 exceptions of following precedents?
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1. Unjust (Brown vs Brown of Education)
2. Poorly reasoned
3. Changing times - Legal sanctions
- Law provides a remedy to either enforce a right or compensate for violation of a right
- Compensatory damages
- Money awarded to plantiff designed to compensate the victim (equal to damages)
- Punitive damages
- Awarded to a plantiff and designed to punish defendant
- Equitable relief
- Doing what is fair or what is right
- Rescission
- Court will return the parties to the position they were in before contract was entered
- Injunctions
- An order of the court that directs a party to do something
- Specific performance
- Court orders the party to perform under the contract
- Judicial philosophies
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Restraintists- One who believes that the legislature should make the law and that the courts role is to interpret the law
Activists - Said to "make law" - Teleological theory
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The morality of an act must be judged by its consequences
A good action is one that has a good outcome - Deontological theory
- An approach to ethical behavior that focuses on the means used to achieve an end
- Normative theory
- One which tells you how you ought to act
- Descriptive theory
- One that describes how we did act, but not how to act
- Psychological Egoism
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Descriptive theory that we act according to our own interest
We give to charity to feel good about ourselves - Ethical egoism
- A normative theory that we should always act to promote our self interest
- Cultural relativism
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A descriptive theory that holds that the morality of an action is relative to its cultural setting
Bribing government officials is acceptable in some countries - Utilitarianism
- A teleological theory that an action is morally right if it produces the greatest good for the most people
- Categorical imperative
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Deontological theory that we should always act as if our actions could become universal law
Improper to lie about a loan because then everyone would do it - Aristotles' Virtue and Perfectionism
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We should seek true happiness, which comes about by practicing courage, temperance... become good by doing good
Generosity is the middle between wastefulness and stinginess