Cengage Advantage Books: Business Law Today, The Essentials 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller

تمرين 12

Spotlight on Sole Proprietorship Personal Liability
FACTS Garden City Boxing Club, Inc. (GCB), owned the exclusive right to broadcast several prizefights via closed-circuit television, including a match between Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas on September 14, 2002. GCB sold the right to receive the broadcasts to bars and other commercial venues. The fee was $20 multiplied by an establishment's maximum fire code occupancy. Antenas Enterprises in Chicago, Illinois, sells and installs satellite television systems under a contract with DISH Network. After installing a system, Antenas sends the buyer's address and other identifying information to DISH.
In January 2002, Luis Garcia, an Antenas employee, identified a new customer as José Melendez at 220 Hawthorn Commons in Vernon Hills. The address was a restaurant-Mundelein Burrito-but Garcia designated the account as residential. Mundelein's patrons watched the De La Hoya-Vargas match, as well as three other fights on other dates, for which the restaurant paid only the residential rate to DISH and nothing to GCB. GCB filed a suit in a federal district court against Luis Dominguez, the sole proprietor of Antenas, to collect the fee.
ISSUE Was Dominguez personally liable for the restaurant's commercial fee to GCB?
DECISION Yes. The court issued a summary judgment in GCB's favor, holding that the plaintiff was entitled to the amount of the fee, plus damages and attorneys' fees.
REASON The court found that Mundelein Burrito was clearly a commercial establishment. "The structure of the building, an exterior identification sign, and its location in a strip mall made this obvious." Under the Cable Communications Act, "an authorized intermediary of a communication violates the Act when it divulges communication through an electronic channel to one other than the addressee."
Antenas's improper designation of Mundelein Burrito as residential allowed the unauthorized broadcast of four prizefights to the restaurant. Antenas is a sole proprietorship, and a sole proprietorship has no legal identity apart from that of the individual who owns it. A sole proprietor is personally responsible for the acts that his or her employees commit within the scope of their employment. Dominguez owns Antenas, and Garcia is Dominguez's employee. "Accordingly, Dominguez is personally liable for the damages caused by the violation of... the [Cable Communications] Act."
WHAT IF THE FACTS WERE DIFFERENT? If Mundelein Burrito had identified itself as a residence when ordering the satellite system, how might the result have been different?