CASE STUDY 1.1
(Legal Forms of Doing Business)
You have decided to open a hamburger restaurant in South Australia.
The location of your restaurant can be decided by you but it must be in South Australia. You can also decide on your own name for your hamburger restaurant but you need first to describe briefly the appropriate steps to get that name registered.

You need to analyse the best form of business ‘set up’ for your hamburger restaurant (based on Topic 3 information). You have decided against a franchise in favour of your own special and unique brand. Please analyse the options: sole trader, partnership or proprietary limited company by looking at the appropriate legislation (if any) and analysing the advantages and disadvantages of the business model you decide upon.

You also need to consider that your best friend Adam wants to join you in this business venture by investing half of the capital required to set up the burger restaurant. You need his money. Consider the options. With what form of business strategy or model can you best accommodate his generous offer?

Case Study 1.2
(Employing Staff)
Your Burger Restaurant is now open. It has been operating for 3 months.

You have employed a number of staff.
Ben: Hamburger Super Chef – He is a permanent employee.
Carol – Casual waiting staff
Donna – Casual waiting staff
Eddie – Casual staff, and responsible for any deliveries required. He wears no official shirt, and is available “at call” for you and another pizza restaurant in the same shopping mall. He has his own motorcycle.

Ben has caused you a few problems. In fact, last Friday he swore at you in front of the whole group when you reported to him that a customer had complained about a poorly cooked burger, and then he left his shift an hour early and didn’t return. You know Frank wants to come and work permanently with you. You want to get rid of Ben and employ Frank as the new Hamburger Super Chef. Can you do so?

Also you want to employ Carol as a Supervisor but don’t want to pay her the shift penalties prescribed in the Award. Are there consequences here? Moreover, Donna is injured (suspected broken ankle) during her lunch break when she trips over some boxes that have been left around outside the back door of your restaurant in the carpark. Are there consequences for you?

Finally, Eddie’s motorcycle has collided with a pedestrian while delivering burgers for you. Eddie is OK, but are you liable for the injuries to the pedestrian?

Please identify your legal obligations to the staff and what liabilities you may have.

CASE STUDY 1.3
(Dealing with customers)

Your burger restaurant is very, very busy and you have a high turnover of customers in the restaurant. Things are going very well.

Your “Aussie Burger” with its special sauce is the most popular one on the menu. One Sunday when you were not in, and the restaurant is very busy, Carol decides that the restaurant could make more money by removing the advertised price from the board of the “Aussie Burger” and raising the price.

She justifies this to her co-workers by declaring that, “After all, it is a Sunday and we have to pay penalty rates.” So she increases the price of the “Aussie Burger” to $15.00 when its normal price is $12.00. When customers complain upon receiving their bills, Carol tells them that the higher price is a “Sunday surcharge” and insists that they pay the higher amount.

You have now also received a letter from the ACCC asking you to respond to three other matters that have been brought to their attention:

1. You have a new cook, whose name is MacKenzie. The burger that he has crafted in accordance with his recipe has been named ‘The Big MacKenzie’ and the McDonald’s Corporation has complained to the ACCC saying that that is deceptive.

2. You advertise that “a contribution from every sale goes to charity” but, in fact, there is no record of any such collection being made nor sent.

3. You advertise that all of your burger buns have been “made fresh daily in our ovens” but in fact about 30% have been previously baked and then frozen until needed.

Please discuss the legal obligations relating to the above.