Bus Law 415 - Week 1 Individual - Business Ethics Case

Business Ethics Case 3.5

Karen Lewis

BUS/415

July 14, 2011

Faten Dabis

Business Ethics Case 3.5

The National Enquirer is a weekly national super market newspaper. This national tabloid circulates five million copies nationally and about 600,000 copies sold in California alone. The National Enquirer pays it sources for valuable tips on celebrity news, gossip, and crimes. The National Enquirer is known for embellishing and falsifying information on prominent and non- prominent people. Shirley Jones filed a lawsuit against the paper in the state of California for falsifying information regarding defamation of character as citizen.

The National Enquirer to try and avoid the lawsuit filed by Shirley Jones. The newspaper assumed filing the lawsuit in their home state of Florida should have been fair. However, avoiding jurisdiction by the state of California is unethical. Shirley Jones works and resides in California. The actress experienced the ridicule from the allegation written by the tabloid in California. The National Enquirer has a large circulation of the copies of newspaper in that state. It is only fair that the trial proceedings take place in California.

According to Cheeseman, 2010, I think, the long-arm statue should apply in this case. Long -arm law states, a statute that extends a state's jurisdiction to nonresidents who were not served a summons within the state (Cheeseman, 2010). Here are the three jurisdictions that this law can exercise over nonresidents that have (1) committed torts within the state, (2) entered into a contract either in the state or that affects the state and (3) transacted other business in the state that allegedly caused injury to another person (Cheeseman, 2010). The last exercise would apply to Shirley Jones and the state of California. The damages occurred in California and the national enquirer had vast circulation of its newspapers circulating in that state.

Reference

Cheeseman, H. R. (2010). The legal environment of business and online commerce: Business ethics, e-commerce, regulatory, and international issues (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.