Length: 2,000 words ± 10%
Task Description & Requirements
Assignment Question
Micky & Minnie Food Co (Micky & Minnie) is a Launceston-based fast food restaurant which has been in operation since 2017. It sells, among other things, burgers and fried chicken. Matthias has been holding a position of the Store General Manager and the Director of Purchasing since its opening. Micky & Minnie has employed a number of staff to work on the front counter to greet customers, take orders, and arrange orders. Among these front counter staff, one of them is Jason, who has joined Micky & Minnie since January 2018. While Jason’s main duty is at the front counter, from time to time, Jason is helping in the kitchen too. When he works in the kitchen, Jason helps with placing orders, receiving and checking the supply of fresh chicken meats from the supplier, Benning Fresh Supply Pty Ltd (Benning). All along, Micky & Minnie has been proud of its quality as shown in the poster in front of its premises: “Our burgers and fried chicken are freshly made in-store daily from the freshest RSPCA Approved Farming chicken”.
On 8th July 2019, with particularly good business, Micky & Minnie was likely to run out of fresh chicken meats before 3 p.m. Matthias was on annual leave and was not in store at the time. Jason called Benning and asked it to urgently supply 30 kgs of fresh chicken meats. Benning replied: “We do not have the RSPCA Approved Farming chicken in store today. But, we have some non-RSPCA approved chicken meats which we can sell to you at a reduced price”. Jason confirmed same and Benning hence delivered the non-RSPCA approved chicken meats to Micky & Minnie. It has been a long-term practice between Benning and Micky & Minnie that Benning would deliver the fresh meats and leave the invoice at the premises of Micky & Minnie first. Micky & Minnie will then transfer the money into Benning’s bank account the next day.
However, for this delivery of non-RSPCA approved chicken meats, Benning waited until 12th July 2019 and it did not see the money transferred into its bank account. Benning called Micky & Minnie and spoke to Micky, the Executive & Managing Director of Micky & Minnie. Micky advised that: “Sorry, I have no clue about this order. Although Jason often received and checked the supply and collected the invoice from you and he even might have called you before regarding orders, only Matthias can place orders, haven’t you known that?” Without receiving payment, Benning has stopped delivery of fresh chickens to Micky & Minnie and is preparing to sue Micky & Minnie.
Meanwhile, due to this incident, Micky & Minnie blamed Matthias, as a Store General Manager, for failing to control Jason and decided to deduct Matthias’ salary as a penalty. Matthias was upset with this. On the 10th August 2019, he convinced Jason and the other 11 counter and kitchen staff to resign from Micky & Minnie. On 20th August 2019, he established a rival business just opposite Micky & Minnie. Micky & Minnie is considering suing Matthias after it lost 11 staff within the period of less than a month.
a. Discuss whether Micky & Minnie should be liable to Benning for the non-payment in relation to the supply of 30 kgs of the fresh chicken meats.
[10 Marks]
b. Discuss whether Micky & Minnie can sue Matthias for causing its loss of 11 staff.
[10 Marks]
Instruction for both questions:
The discussion must:
(a) Be framed in terms of likely legal consequences if the matter proceeded to trial and discuss all potential arguments raised by the factual matrix;
(b) Propose its contentions by reference to relevant decided case law;
(c) Be written in the third person. Accordingly, sentences should read like: “It is a legal principle…”, “The courts have stated that…”. Likewise, you should also impersonate yourself in writing. Hence, sentences should read: “In the writer’s opinion…” or “From the writer’s point of view…”
(d) For this assignment task, this is an exception that you DO NOT need to comply with the MLM essay format. Instead, you should adopt the IRAC approach as set out below.
(e) In no event should the PowerPoint Files used in the lecture be used as a source of reference in this assignment task.
For the IRAC approach, the work is divided into parts as follows:
1. Facts
(In practice, working under this heading would require a brief overview of relevant facts. However, for this assignment, all that is required here is a simple statement: “The facts are as explained in the assignment task”).
2. Issues
Identify the problem: what has gone wrong? Identify each party and briefly describe their individual issue(s), work out what area of law may govern the resolution of the problem, identify any conflicting or troublesome facts. Note that the assignment may relate to one area of law but it will usually raise a number of issues within that area of law.
3. Rules or Relevant Laws
Set out the legal principles that will be used to address the problem; source legal principles from cases and legislations bearing in mind that law can be different from country to country (and, as far as Australia is concerned, the law may be different from State to State) and hence locating the law of the correct country to apply to the scenario is crucial.
4. Application
This is perhaps the most important part where you demonstrated your understanding of the rules or laws. While the explanation of the rules or laws in the earlier part may be taken from textbooks or relevant statutes, this application part is where you elaborate on your knowledge. In this part, you should explain in detail why the claim is or is not justified, based on the body of law pertaining to the case; use relevant precedent cases or legal principles laid down in the earlier part to support each answer; you may choose to use legislations, where applicable.
5. Conclusion
Stand back and play “the judge”, choose the argument you think is the strongest and articulate what you believe to be appropriate answer; state who is liable for what and to what extent; consider how parties could have acted to better manage their risks in order to avoid the legal problem.
See the assessment criteria sheet on the following page for information about the criteria and the standards by which your work will be judged.
