State of Confusion Paper

Business Law

State of Confusion Paper

University Of Phoenix

Business Law

BUS/415

February 13, 2012

State of Confusion Paper

The court that will have jurisdiction over Tanya Truckers suit is the federal court system. The United States District court handles all problems pertaining to businesses and individuals residing in the United States of America. The federal court system oversees the constitutional rights of citizens, federal laws, and numerous other legal decisions. It is the umbrella that governs all states usually presiding over criminal, taxing, interstate commerce, Federal claims, and bankruptcy cases (Cheeseman 2010 The legal environment of business and online commerce, chapter 3 page 36). Because Tanya's resident is in the state of Denial; the legal question pertains to citizens of two states or a subject of a foreign country known as "diversity of citizenship" (Cheeseman 2010). "A business is considered a citizen of the state that it is incorporated" (Cheeseman 2010).

The federal government oversees laws pertaining to the United States as a whole and not just an individual state. Because the highways are provided by the federal government this directly involves interstate commerce and is a federal issue. The articles of confederation adopted in 1778 gave power to congress to regulate interstate commerce therefore; the court that will have jurisdiction over the lawsuit pertaining to Tanya is the federal court system.

The Confusion statute is unconstitutional because it directly violates the dominant commerce clause or "Negative" (Cheeseman 2010) commerce clause in the United States Constitution. This clause states that Congress has power to regulate commerce across several states regardless of single state statue. This clause dictates that no burden can be placed on interstate commerce which Confusion does by placing mandatory requirements of class B hitches. This is a direct violation of the interstate commerce law. By implementing this mandatory requirement it may be seen as an attempt to monopolize the hitch business. Monopolization is illegal in the trucking industry or any other for that matter. Monopolies for financial gain have been proposed in the past with the steamboat industry but were unsuccessful.

The court will more than likely review the Gibbons vs. Ogden case of 1822 where the state of New York tried to award a monopoly of the steamboat industry to one individual. This case directly relates to the manufacturer of the trailer hitch incident which demands the purchase of their product without competition from another producer or for a reason of merit. It also puts burden on interstate commerce by increasing expenses to Tanya's business by making this particular hitch mandatory and costly to her transport company. This is also known as a "Tort" which in French means a wrong (Cheeseman 2010). This Tort encompasses liability, loss of wages, mental distress, current and future medical expenses. This burden causes Tanya not only extra expenses but increases her mental distress and may be considered in a civil case.

The provisions of the U.S Constitution that will be applied to determine the validity of the Confusion statue will ask does the confusion statue place a burden upon interstate commerce Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution (Pollack M. 2002). The second question will ask if this statue promotes a monopoly for financial gain to one individual.