Law
Institutional Name
Student Name
Course
Date
Memo
To: Fred and Sally
Date: 8/2/2020
Subject: Restarting the business
Dear Fred and Sally,
I am deeply sorry for the unfortunate events that have happened to your business and am here to assure you I will do my best for your business to regain stability and start mass production immediately.
Legal defense
In regards to the checks written by Jane to Don, we can argue in court that Jane knowingly forged your signatures in an aim to defraud the company finances. Moreover, we could further strengthen the case by hiring a handwriting analyst who can prove the fact that Jane forged the signatures on the checks. However, while in court the issue of negligence will arise where the court will have to access whether due to negligence of the principle owners about the finances of the company might have contributed to Jane forging checks and defrauding the company. However, both of you Fred and Sally should be ready to answer questions regarding how Jane could have done all of the forgeries while both of you held the signatory power for the corporate accounts hence the court could try to shift the blame to both of them as they were negligent in their business operations. Also, Don, the loan shark could be held accountable because of cashing in checks which he might have know where forged; nevertheless, he continued accepting them. The case also could be strengthened by the fact that loan sharks have been known to practice illegal activities to acquire their money back; hence Don accepting the forged checks is not new to the court. Again, Don could be charged with civil claims as he was instrumental to the forgery of the checks in the company by accepting and cashing in the checks it made him an accomplice to the crime and gives both of Fred and Sally an option to sue him also for aiding forgery. Moreover, the act of forgery is illegal in all fifty states in the country which carry penalties such as prison time or restitution. I believe we will be able to acquire back successfully. Jane stole the amount through her forging of the company checks.
Check to the church
The money given to the church can be quickly recovered when we present the case of forgery on the check which Jane made out to cash which presented to the church it raises concern about the legitimacy of the money. Moreover, concerning the churches involvement in the forgery its highly doubtable because churches are among institutions which are considered to be holders-in –due-course which most of the times they receive forgery checks out of goodwill hence it’s not fair to place them liable for any crime committed due to the criminal activities of the party presenting the check to them. However, the church may dishonour the check while at the same time not dishonour the party who brought forth the check as stated by the UCC[3-501(b)(3)] law. Furthermore, I strongly believe we will successfully be able to recover all the money acquired by the church due to the forged checks.
Civil Claims
In regards to bringing forth civil claims of forgery on the actions of Jane, it would be appropriate. It’s because only both of you had the authority to have signatories to the corporate account which was broken by Jane who illegally wrote checks and had no authority to the corporate accounts. However, both of you should be ready to answer questions on how Jane was able to easily forge checks without your knowledge while you two held the signatory authority of the corporate accounts which the accused can argue that due to the negligence she was able to forge the checks. Hence, the acts of forging committed by Jane should be charged and prosecuted by the court. However, this will be made possible if you both track the monthly expenditures of the company and review all the checks written to third party entities to facilitate the operations of the company. This will give us enough evidence on the numerous forged checks Jane has signed without any legal obligation from both you to serve her own interests, such as sending checks to Don. Furthermore, Don could face any civil legal case brought against him through the forgery case as he directly supported the act done by Jane through defrauding the company’s finances. However, Don could argue that he was not aware of Jane’s actions towards defrauding the company hence requires proper evaluation of the transactions done by Jane to check the various checks she made to Don whether they passed through legal channels. Also, I do believe we can win the forgery case because we will have had enough substantial evidence from the illegal transactions committed by Jane while she worked in the company.
Forms of Bankruptcy
There only two forms of bankruptcy in the above case study, which include chapter seven and chapter thirteen bankruptcy. Moreover, through the legal system, it can be interpreted that there is no difference between the principal owners of the company and other owners which entails individuals in the company who have debt can be charged. Also, it states that all his/her properties can be taken and act as compensation as stated in chapter seven but can be exempted if legal laws seem fit to delay the process (Loren & Reese, 2019). The use of chapter seven is not appropriate to your current situation and would only increase the financial challenges you will need to face especially in repaying the loans taken by the corporate for expansion of its operations.However, chapter thirteen states that the accused is not required to issue out their wealth through compensation unless the accused has taken more than five years to repay the loan. Hence, the best cause of action would be to use Chapter thirteen bankruptcies because the company assets will not be taken and give Fred time to clear his debts.
Implications of Bankruptcy
The implication of bankruptcy will depend mostly on the chapter of bankruptcy filed by the accused. We see if the Fred issued files through chapter seven, he/she is not considered as the principal owner of the business and will be regarded as other owners. Hence, it results to the accused properties not exempted from any legal proceeding; hence they can be viewed as compensation towards the bankruptcy trustee which entails selling everything even the machinery in the company leading to the eventual closure of the business. However, if Fred files for Chapter thirteen, no assets that belong to him will be taken and presumed as assets to pay for compensation (Jamali, 2017). The filed bankruptcy gives Fred time to pay his loan where he is giving up to five years to repay hence giving Fred liability to grow the business while at the same time ensure he can still repay the loan which has been accumulated due to the forgery undertaken by Jane. Fred will be required to make monthly repayments in an aim to clear the debt while at the same time, continue the operations of the business. However, the success of chapter thirteen is highly dependant on the substantial evidence of malpractice committed to them by an employee such as Jane through the forgery of checks, which led the company into hard financial times.
Legal recourse
The only legal recourse Fred has against bob would be the violation of the trade secret. We see Bob has been able to reverse engineer the cough syrup developed by Fred and publicized it to the rest of the companies out of revenge and not as an aim to help in discovery. Fred should argue that Bob infringed confidential information by disclosing the information to the public. However, once the file the case as an infringement of intellectual rights it gives us little defence to hold Bob accountable for his actions as the act only limits Bob from mass-producing the syrup but does not protect the right for discovery which Bob will base his defence in the court. Also, the infringement case only protects the owner from other individuals taking advantage of his/her intellectual property through manipulation of the formulas which is not the case as Bob only reversed engineered the syrup and posted the results online which can be viewed as discovery by the court. I strongly believe we will be unsuccessful because there is no evidence of a violation of intellectual rights by Bob towards Fred.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Best,
Your lawyer
References
Jamali, H. R. (2017). Copyright compliance and infringement in ResearchGate full-text journal articles. Scientometrics, 112(1), 241-254.
Loren, L. P., & Reese, A. (2019). Proving Infringement: Burdens of Proof in Copyright Infringement Litigation. Lewis & Clark L. Rev., 23, 621.
