Dupont Vs LandscapeEssay Preview: Dupont Vs LandscapeReport this essayDuPontLandscape ProfessionalsKelli D. BrassfieldBus. Law 36520 November 2011Landscaping is wonderful. You can take a yard from drab to fab. You can do the most elaborate landscapes (paver patios and water features) to the very basic (plain green turf). Landscape professionals meet with customers, get the ideas that they want, and then use their best judgment to use products that will satisfy their customers needs.
Landscape professionals also need to take into consideration whether their customers are commercial or residential. As a landscaper myself, in our family business, we mainly have commercial turf maintenance. In our contracts we are to perform the best turf maintenance to our capabilities. To provide our customers with the best turf management it includes turf fertilizer, bill bug prevention, and maintenance of weeds.
The majority of our time is spent on the maintenance of weeds. This year our company, and many others, used a new product, Imprelis. Imprelis was put into the market by the company DuPont. DuPont has been a trusted company for many years.
Imprelis is a broadleaf weed control herbicide. This product is used in cool season and certain warm season turf. It can be used on all lawn types. Imprelis is designed to control major broadleaf weeds including but not limited to dandelion and clover. It was also designed to control annual and perennial broadleaf weeds (DuPont, Product Label). It was brought into the market in October 2010.
Imprelis has been used all over the country, from Delaware to Oregon. It certainly does its job; however, it also has side effects. The side effects that were unintended by DuPont include death or damage to numerous trees. Damage was first reported around Memorial Day 2011. The species of trees affected are the Norway
spruce, White Pine, Balsam Fir, and others. With the damage reported, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that there would be an “expedited review” (Parker). Class action lawsuits have been filed in Michigan and Ohio due to the death of trees.
Among the many lawsuits against DuPont, Washtenaw Acquisition vs. DuPont and Town and Country Landscape Management LLC vs. DuPont are the most recognized. In Washtenaw Acquisition vs. DuPont the prosecution seeks jury trial and unspecified triple damages for properties that were harmed by the Imprelis chemical (Milford). In Town and Country Landscape Management LLC vs. DuPont the nature of the lawsuit is real property-property liability tort.
Product liability is a field that combines and enforces rules and principles of contracts, sales, negligence, strict liability, and statutory law. It covers the liability that manufacturers and sellers have to the people that purchase their goods. A breach of contract must be present for a company, DuPont, to be in a product liability lawsuit. It starts with a guarantee or promise such as warranty. A warranty is an obligation of the seller concerning title, quality, characteristics, or condition of goods sold (Mann, 416). In this case a creation of an expressed warranty is written descriptions of how the product is believed to perform. In the warranty it also states that the product may not perform as expected due to unexpected factors such as, weather conditions and soil factors.
Under the Uniform Commercial Code (Code), DuPont also created an implied warranty of merchantability; the merchant seller, through the warranty, implies that the
goods are fit for their ordinary purpose. To reduce liability, merchant sellers often instill disclaimers. A disclaimer is a negation of warranty. For a disclaimer to be effective, they need to be positive, explicit, unequivocal, and conspicuous.
In this case, DuPont has modified the warranty with an implied warranty of merchantability. This disclaimer must mention merchantability and must be conspicuous if in writing, which it is. The Code tests the disclaimer for being conspicuous. The terms must include 1) a heading in capitals equal or greater in size than the surrounding text, and 2) language in the body of a record or display in larger type of the same surrounding text.
In reference to the both cases mentioned against DuPont, they are product liability / strict liability tort. This portrays the breach of contract. A strict liability tort is when a merchant seller is liable for selling goods in a defective condition, unreasonably dangerous to the user or the users property. Section 402A of the Restatement states that strict liability in tort exists if 1) the defendant was engaged in the business of selling a product such as the defective one, 2) the defendant sold the product in a defective condition; 3) the defective condition made the product unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer or to his property; 4) the defect in the product existed when it left the defendants hands; 5) the plaintiff sustained physical harm or property damage by using or consuming the product; and 6) the defective condition was the proximate cause of the injury or damage. DuPont violated section 402A part three and five. This breach is not governed by the Code; however, it is a tort and
e.g., a false advertisement for an anti-dilution product. The Code of Federal Regulations (1940) provided that warranties that the goods were made free of hazardous or unapproved materials or that manufacturers would not charge for the products provided that “the goods must be of reasonable material for the purpose of manufacturing” were not violated if the goods were made under non-disclosure agreements. DuPont did purchase a defective unit of a commercial machine having an unapproved capacity and the defendant was not required to disclose to a third party any information concerning the capacity, including the equipment or operating principles for the products it manufactured.
The “false advertising” provision of the Code of Federal Regulations (1940) and other provisions of a Code of Federal Regulations (1939) do not apply to all third parties.
The “disclosure of information about product or services is non-disclosure if the information is confidential, such as information in an investigation of a business’s activities, or information to be communicated from a party to its business or from a third party, such as information about a dispute involving a third party.” Although the Code does not prohibit third parties from disclosing information that may be relevant to a case, it does prohibit disclosure that the parties have good cause grounds to believe the information might disclose otherwise. It seems clear that the Code was designed to protect consumers from deceptive trade practices that can violate the Consumer Law and other codes.
DuPont has challenged this restriction on its trade practices, alleging that it breaches the Code by allowing its dealerships to engage in misleading practices that include misrepresentations or warranties that are designed to deceive consumers, and then acting to mislead consumers or to obtain and sell the wrong product. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the disclosure of information of such a kind is not an undue burden on the Court of Appeals because the disclosure of such information is not disclosed for business that is to be undertaken by manufacturers, which is a business on which all other business interests in business have a fair chance of surviving.
The Seventh Circuit ruled for and for en banc, although this review is based on the Code of Federal Regulations (1940) and its other provisions. On appeal, the third party-only plaintiffs asked the Court of Appeals to re-examine the Code of Federal Regulations (1940) specifically and for the reasons set forth in this commentary.
The Court of Appeals stated that in light of the current rules about trade practices, and because there has been no precedent for the publication of any notice disclosing one’s trade practices, DuPont’s breach of the Code of Federal Regulations (1940) and its other provisions is “a significant trade breach.” While the Code of Federal Regulations (1940) and other provisions were not intended “to discourage consumers or to prevent anyone from finding the law unlawful,” the Code applies only to all goods that the seller of the product finds to have in their possession any such conduct. See id. A search for a copy of the Code of Federal Regulations (1940) reveals that the notice under consideration is “included by name, number or type of the goods,” which does not appear to relate to a category of goods. See id. . This requirement, as well as DuPont’s previous refusal to disclose the status of the products being sold, has led to a further delay in publication of the notice.
DuPont contends the notice was under duress because the information in the notice is confidential, and because both consumers and consumers are prohibited from knowing the information. Since information on the matter is confidential, and since the notice is not under duress, the court finds that the breach of duress is a matter for Congress to decide. The Court of Appeals stated that consumers are not barred from knowing information which should be known about their health information, such as the names and addresses of the other people involved in the