Business Law - Individual Research Assignment

Individual Research Assignment

Facts

Megabucks Limited was clearing up land by excavation activities which were extracting plantation and trees. This was happening on January 1, 2007. The purpose was to use the land for development. The excavated land consisted of a bay in which commercial prawn trawling activities were going on. Even though it might be argued that the development was approved beforehand by the local council which was overseeing matters relating to the regulation of the fisheries, it must be noted that the local council failed to take account of a huge pile of debris that was present when it inspected the land area. This pile of debris has been stockpiled by Megabucks Limited, and no intention of clearing it up or removing it had been stated in the plan that was approved by the local council. The statutory laws in effect presented the local council with the authority to deny approval on the basis of absence of debris removal plans, but the council failed to make use of this opportunity (Graw, 2012).

Consequently, the pile of debris collapsed into the bay water after sitting over there for a month after the inspection had taken place earlier. The result was disastrous for the prawn trawlers: they were unable to fish in the bay for an entire year, which happened owing to the fact that the entire bay had been accumulated with sand, extracted remains of trees and plants, as well as inner soil. This owes to the negligence on part of the local council as well as Megabucks Limited.

Issue

The plaintiffs, which are the commercial prawn trawlers, faced a loss owing to 12 months of inability to fish for prawns in the bay. This occurred primarily due to the reason that a huge stack of debris had been left over the side of the bay after the clearance activity was carried out by Megabucks Limited. The pile of debris included trees, soil as well as soil that came out as part of the extraction. The pile of debris grew in size over a course of one month post inspection. This growth led to its instability and it toppled over, polluting the bay to the extent that trawling activities could not be carried on.

Two people are held responsible for the occurrence of this issue: Megabucks Limited on the primary level, as they went on to unethically stockpile that debris and then became negligent regarding its effect on the bay; the local council on the secondary level, and three reasons accounted for their responsibility in this context: they were the ones who had issued operating licenses to the commercial trawlers; they also conducted an inspection prior to the clearing of the bay area, during which they failed to notice the size of the debris pile, and (subsequently) the potential consequences that could occur if it would have been left over there; they had approved the developmental plan despite knowing the fact that it does not contain any plan for removing the ...