Reference no: EM132154083
Joe’s Supply Company manufactures and sells elbow joints from its only location in New York. The elbow joints are sold throughout the United States and go into homes, houses, apartments, office buildings, hospitals and other buildings. On January 1, 2007 Joe, CEO of Joe’s Supply Company, finds a new supplier for resin to make his elbow joints at a much lower cost. This will make his business competitive with other manufacturers who already have Chinese suppliers. Joe’s R&D director does some preliminary tests on the resin and ultimately, the resin seems satisfactory. On February 1, 2007, Joe’s Supply begins manufacturing his elbow joints with the new resin and selling the newly formulated product over the internet, by mail and with walk-in customers. The elbow joints come with a 2 year limited warranty and a disclaimer about consequential damages.
In June 2008, Joe started to get reports from contractor customers that his elbow joints were leaking and damage to property was occurring. Joe did nothing to investigate these claims. He simply sent the customers a letter with the final results on the resin and told them, they must have installed the elbow joints incorrectly.
Can Joe be sued for the damage caused by the elbow joints? If so, describe the steps that Joe’s customer would have to take to sue Joe.
Can Joe’s customer sue the Chinese Company that made the resin?
If Joe did not want to be sued what other dispute resolution procedures are available to him and what do you think he should do?
If the government brought a criminal case against Joe’s Supply, can the corporation refuse to testify against itself under the 5th Amendment? Can Joe refuse to testify? Can Joe refuse to hand over internal corporate papers such as the test results? Why?