Class notes
BUL 4421 Midterm Review Final Notes
- Course
- BUL 4421
- Institution
- Florida Atlantic University
Comprehensive and detailed Midterm Review Final Notes for BUL 4421.
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BUL4421 MIDTERM REVIEWCh. 1: Intro to Business Law Dynamics
1. Relevant areas of business law applicable to human recourse management
involve 4 things:
a. Agency law, contracts, employment and labor laws, and employment
discrimination
2. Private law: regulates disputes between private individuals or groups
3. Public law: regulates disputes between private individuals and govt (ie. dumping in
violation of fed or state environmental laws)
4. Civil law: delineates the rights and responsibilities implied in relationship b/t persons
or person and their govt (no jail time or incarceration)
5. Criminal law: regulates incidents in which someone commits an act against the public
as a whole, such as by conducting insider trading on the stock exchange (govt is plaintiff)
6. Hierarchy of laws: U.S. Constitution > Federal Statutes > State Constitution > State
Statutes > Common Law
a. US Constitution: supreme law of the land
b. Common law (aka case law): collection of legal interpretations made by judges,
and are law unless revoked by new statutory law
i. Includes the doctrine of stare decisis where judges rely on previous
written decisions & those written decisions are called case law precedent
ii. Precedent: past decisions in similar cases that guide later decisions
iii. Stare decisis: “standing by the decision” – rulings made in higher courts
are binding precedent for rulings in lower courts
7. Restatements of law: summaries of common law rules in a particular area of the law
that have been enacted in most states – they do not carry the weight of the law but guide
interpretations of certain principles
8. Schools of jurisprudence: specific habits of the mind and habits of human nature
a. Beliefs are deeply rooted in a person’s emotions & habits, and thus they are sure
to guide one’s opinions and decisions
b. Such beliefs may commonly be held and create much larger schools of thought,
thus they are more common guides to legal interpretations
c. 5 schools of jurisprudence (CHiLLiN):
i. Natural law: describes certain ethical laws believed to be morally right
and “above” the laws devised by humans – based on universal moral
principles (if a written law is unjust & not natural, must not be obeyed)
ii. Legal positivism: law is the supreme will of the state, morals and ethics
are not universal – must abide by duly authorized laws (natural law >
legal positivism) – may be enforced although not morally agreed with
iii. Historical school: following tradition or customs to shape the law,
looking to the past to see what modern law should be like – closely linked
to doctrine of stare decisis – assuming past practice was carefully thought
iv. Legal realism: judges following this school of jurisprudence may more
likely depart from past court decisions to account for the fact that our
, society is constantly shifting and evolving – should consider more than
just the law (economic and social states) => protects pregnant women
v. Cost-benefit analysis: the law should yield more benefit than it costs –
an economic school of jurisprudence – close to pursuit of efficacy (EX:
environmental impact – pollution cleanup is more costly)
Ch. 2: Business Ethics
1. Business Ethics: the application of ethics to the special problems and opportunities
experienced by business ppl
a. Include but are not limited to (P, C, SR): decisions in choosing a method of
production, decisions regarding how to compete with competitors, social
responsibilities of the firm
b. Example of bad business ethics: Accutane – Is a company doing the right thing
when it attempts to reduce the cost of advertising by not listing all possible
complications of the medicine for the consumer?
c. Decisions in choosing a method of production (bribes): dealing with bribes,
some companies only work on bribes in order to supply it, Siemens AG is now
forced to restructure to do business ethically and legally
2. WPH framework for business ethics: Who the decision impacts, Purpose of the
decision, How to make the decision (guidelines)
a. Who: stakeholders of a firm are the many groups of ppl affected by the firm’s
decisions, including but not limited to (6, MECCOF)
i. Management, employees, customers, community where the
firm operates, owners/shareholders, future generations
ii. Future generations: thinking more broadly about who may be affected
just as much in the long run, allows a firm to make less decisions that will
have unintended negative ethical impacts / consequences
b. Purposes for this decision (4, JEFS): justice, efficiency, freedom, security
c. How we make ethical business decisions (3, PUG): public disclosure,
universalization test, golden rule
i. Golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you
ii. Public disclosure test: if the public knew about this decision, how
would you decide? As if our actions are being broadcast nationally
(television test)
iii. Universalization test: what would the world be like were our decisions
were made by everyone else? Encourages us to consider before we act
what the world would be like if everyone acted that way
iv. How the community perceives us: self-concept
3. Basic unit of business ethics is: value – positive notions that capture our sense of what
is good or desirable
a. We derive our ethics from the interplay of values
b. Values represent our understanding of the purposes we will fulfill by making
particular decisions
4. Theories of Business Ethics (6, CUPAVE)
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