LAW504 Law Of Tort Assignment – UK

Task 1 :-
You are employed in a London law firm Your client is Mr XXX. Over the last couple of months things have not gone well for him and a number of serious events have taken place for which he needs legal advice. He has sent you a letter explaining the range of problems and you need to prepare for a forth coming meeting with XXX.

In preparation for the meeting make detailed structured notes using relevant cases and statutory provisions where needed.

XXX letter
Dear Sir/Madam

I own and run a laundrette in South London Until recently I had three employees: Amber Gordon and Delphine who were new to the job and employed for only five weeks.

Being relatively in experienced Delphine overloaded one of the dry cleaning machines with garments and instead of filling it with a solution for dry cleaning fabrics she filled it with a solution we use for main taining and cleaning the machine. This caused a fire in the laundrette.

I immediately called the local fire brigade and managed to get Ella a customer in the laundrette at the time Delphine and Gordon, out of the laundrette. Gordon was un injured but Delphine suffered second-degree burns. Ella had minor burns on her feet.

Amber was still in side the laundrette and in order to rescue her I went back in side through the flames. Gordon saw me taking this action and had a severe psycho logical shock and collapsed at the scene.

Mikella another customer was on her way to the laundrette and having also witnessed me going into the laundrette to rescue Amber suffered a nervous shock. The fire brigade attended the scene 20 minutes after I made the phone call but did not have the correct length of water hose and was un able to extinguish the fire. How ever they managed to rescue Amber and I from the laundrette.

The fire caused significant damage. It destroyed all the garments in the laundrette belonging to different customers all the equipment and the interior of the premises was blackened with smoke damage.

Delphine was taken to the local hospital for emergency treatment. The doctor that attended to her was recently qualified and due to in experience administered the wrong treatment. This caused Delphine’s condition to deteriorate and she suffered cardiac arrest and died

Delphine’s husband Fred was devastated by her death On leaving the hospital he saw me and in anger punched me in the face, breaking my nose.

In addition to these problems I then received a letter signed by the owners of the other businesses in the same street as the laundrette. They stated that the state of the laundrette is a disturbing sight that it had affected their trade and unless I took immediate steps to repair it and compensate them for their loss they were going to bring a claim against me.

One of the neighbouring shops the printing office of a local news paper published an article in yesterday’s edition of the paper, blaming me for the accident. The headline of the article read:

This is what happens when incompetent people operate a business”

The article was accompanied by a photograph of the fire damaged laundrette and me. I am devastated and need your advice