Novelty Now Case Summary

The appropriate court for this lawsuit depends upon several factors. Three important considerations include the following: personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, and minimum contacts. Personal jurisdiction is the courts jurisdiction and power over the parties involved in the case. The plaintiff, Donald Margolin, is able to bring suit against the defendants, Novelty Now Inc., Chris, Matt, and Ian, because they used the Internet to market and sell their product. If the defendants do not live or operate their business out of New York, it is unlikely that the local court will have personal jurisdiction over the case. Subject matter jurisdiction is the “court’s power to hear certain kinds of cases” (Kubasek, 2016). State jurisdiction

The primary crime that exists in this case is that of fraud. Fraud is “an intentional deception that causes harm to another” (Kubasek, 2016). The owners of Funny Face website, Chris, Matt, and Ian, definitely committed fraud when they switched the PYR to a low cost chemical emulsifier not approved by the FDA and marketed nationally on the radio, newspapers, their website, and Facebook. Novelty Now will also be held responsible for committing fraud since they also knew about the chemical being switched and did nothing to stop this from happening. I believe anyone who is part of the company, such as all the corporate offices of Novelty Now can be held liable for any criminal acts that took place regarding the products they produce and sell. In the story, even though fraud is the primary crime in this case there are also other possible crimes. Novelty Now’s representative and Chris decided to substitute the emulsifier in their aftershave lotion has brought them and their companies liable under the crime of false pretenses, fraudulent concealment, and health care fraud. The defendants gave potential costumers the pretense that this product was safe, had no side effects, and was FDA approved. This case could also be viewed under fraudulent concealment because the defendant did not advise their buyers that the PYR was not FDA approved. The defendants willingly made the decision of replacing the emulsifier and

When the representative of Novelty Now and Chris decided to increase the profit margin they would substitute the PYR in place of Novelty’s original formula, they were affecting the key element Who. This poor decision-making caused their unethical act to hurt their company, management, employees, and community. This loss of trust will affect all other products they carry. The second element involves the Purpose. The defendant’s main reason for doing this was to obtain more money. Their poor values have caused extensive damage to Donald, the plaintiff. Finally the last key element in the process of ethical decision-making is How. The defendants needed to ask themselves why they did not let the public know the new chemical was not FDA approved. The three men and Novelty Now did not ask themselves what would happen if everybody followed their guidelines. If they had asked themselves these questions they would have realized they were making unethical decisions. As Aristotle and Confucius would say you would not go wrong if you treat others the way you want to be treated (Kubasek,