Business Law You are the owner and operator of a restaurant that stays open 24 h
ID: 330168 • Letter: B
Question
Business Law
You are the owner and operator of a restaurant that stays open 24 hours a day. On Friday night, a group of teenage patrons entered your restaurant, dined and were disorderly in their conduct towards other patrons. Your employee, Shelly, the manager, kindly asked the group of teenage patrons to leave. One teenager, Ashanti, responded with profanities to Shelly telling her that she was not leaving and threatened to “kick her ass.” Shelly, responded, “I wish you would,” at which time, Ashanti physically attacked Shelly by punching her repeatedly. Ashanti defended herself and got Shelly off of her and then proceeded to strike Ashanti repeatedly causing Ashanti to fall back and hit her head awkwardly on the ground, causing Ashanti to become paralyzed from the waist down. Ashanti files a lawsuit against Shelly and your company. What are the legal theories of the lawsuit and what will be the result?
Explanation / Answer
The injury that Shelly caused to Ashanti was out of retaliation in self-defense. Ashanti had physically attacked Shelly and was punching her repeatedly. This had the probability of causing Shelly severe bodily harm. The attack that Shelly caused on Ashanti was in response to what Ashanti was doing and can be considered as a self-defense approach in proportionality. Ashanti hit her head accidently on the ground, which caused her partial paralysis. In this case, Shelly is not responsible for the plight of Ashanti and it was a mere accident in the act of retaliation. Had Shelly used deadly force to cause bodily harm or severe consequences to Ashanti, Shelly could have been legally sued. But this was a mere proportional self-defense. Hence Shelly is not accountable for the plight of Ashanti.
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