BUSINESS LAW ANALYSIS 1
Eli Epstein
MBA 610
Southern New Hampshire University
November 5, 2014
BUSINESS LAW ANALYSIS 2
Introduction
There are many interesting and complex topics and areas in the world of business law.
This paper will primarily focus on tort law and some of the subcategories that go along with it.
The area of tort law is quite complex, we have different types of torts as well as torts done on
purpose. Torts can also come to include both intentional and unintentional slips and falls in the
workplace or accidents occurring involving work vehicles.
What is a Tort?
The word tort comes from the Latin tortus which can mean crooked, twisted and
dishonest. Essentially, torts are actions done by people in a crooked, twisted or dishonest way-
generally it is a wrong and harmful act to another individual or individuals property ( Twomey &
Jennings, 2014: pg. 166). People often assume that a tort and a crime are the same thing, yet
they are drastically different and it is important to understand the difference between them. A
crime is a bad action done which arises from a violation of public duty, someone who does
something so dramatically wrong that government has to step in to appropriately punish the
offender. It is important that people witness the crime doer’s punishment as notice to themselves
to stay away from such immoral behavior. On the other hand a tort is an erroneous behavior
which comes from violating a private duty (Twomey & Jennings, 2014: pg. 166). It is significant
to understand that tort law is different from criminal law in a few vital ways: the first is that, torts
come from careless but not deliberate or unlawful proceedings and secondly, tort lawsuits have a
lesser load of proof needed. Sometimes a petitioner may triumph in a tort case even if the person
who caused the harm was acquitted in an earlier unlawful trial. A relevant example which many
people watched as the case occurred was with OJ Simpson; he was acquitted in criminal court
and later found responsible for the tort of causing a wrongful death (Jasanoff, 1998).
BUSINESS LAW ANALYSIS 3
Main Research
The purpose of this research is to determine the affects defamation truly has on a fired
employee’s ability to get hired again after being fired. Defamation is the sharing of an untrue
statement by one part about another one to a third, unrelated group. There can be two separate
types of defamation, 1) slander, which is oral and verbally spoken defamation and 2) libel, which
is defamation that is written down (Twomey & Jennings, 2014; pg. 170). For something to be
coined defamation it must include the following elements, 1) cause damage from the said or
written statement 2) it must be a stamen directed specifically at a particular person with the intent
to cause harm onto them 3) a false statement involving another person’s reputation, integrity and
honesty- while being untruthful about it. An example displaying the above is if an untrue
statement is being passed around from a company owner about his former employee that he was
