Negligence Essay : A Laptop Recovery

Summary: Plaintiff suffers from both physical and mental losses due to the negligence of an authorized computer service.  It is clear that a reasonable or prudent person did not conduct a proper service of repairing the computer problem.

1. Introduction

1.1. Problems with the computer. Dr.John Bown worked as a faculty in a prestigious university in
Middle East; and used freely an HP laptop given by the University for his conduct of teaching.  He had to visit IT (Information Technology) staff to have the laptop repaired several times.   Once his computer was broken on the last day of week, he had taken it to IT to have it fixed it because he had to prepare his class over weekend.  IT staff said, “It is about four PM, and he could not work because he is not paid after 4 PM”.  Thus, he was kindly recommended to leave till Monday. 

1.2. A better computer. Dr.John Bown felt desperate as a result of the technical problems with the laptop.  He decided to purchase the most expensive computer model of SONY VAIO, made in Japan, in order to avoid any more problems with the laptop.  It worked really fine and he was happy with it.  Later, John moved to Edmonton since he accepted a position in Alberta University.  After a while, his new laptop initiated some problems.  It was unreliable and began heating up too much. He asked the employees, the SONY store in West Edmonton Mall, about the availability of any technical services. But, the only service that was recommended was located in Calgary.

 1.3. Seeking a reasonable technical service.  For a workshop, he luckily had to go Calgary; therefore, finally he found the service in Calgary. He explained the problems about the laptop to the secretary and technical staff as clearly as he could as in the following: a) being heated too much; b) opening computer takes several hours, and c) battery doesn’t work.  The staff agreed to make a diagnostic test for it that would cost an additional $50 that needed to be paid in advance. They recorded credit card information for later costs. He was asked to give acceptance for the available files in case they have to reformat the hard disk.  Everything seemed professional standard of care during his contact with the service, and technical services taken a guarantee for any payment for the cost of repair. Standard of care appeared to be available here with the service and provided with a receipt (say contract) that shows the existence of the liability for conducting the solution of the raised technical problem.

1.4. Unreasonable solution for repaired shop. Then, his computer was delivered through Canada Post two weeks later. He was sure with the result of the computer repairs because he had taken it to the service and explained the entire story based upon the face to face communication.  First, he looked at the receipt showing the cost of their conduct ($180) that was the cost of the battery change and their testing of computer hardware, implied that nothing technically wrong. Additionally, a four month warranty for the computer repair was offered in the receipt.  It seems that they assured with a detailed receipt that the computer was fully recovered. He opened the computer and expected it would be ready to properly work. John had to wait several hours and realized in the end that the same problem still existed with his computer. This is a matter discussed below.

 1.5. Solution based on a reasonable service. Finally, John went to ask IT services of the Alberta University, and he was recommended to click on F8 button after resetting for a complete recovery of the computer system.  Backed up his files, he reformatted his computer and finally his computer came up with normal speed as it always had.

 

2. Negligence Analysis: 

2.1. A duty of care:  Let’s take a look what a duty of care means that is owed to foreseeable plaintiff in order to prevent others from unreasonable risk of the economic loss.  As a professional technical service of the Sony, they have a duty to act as a reasonably prudent consultant in the same similar circumstances.  In this case, John Bown will elaborate whether he can be qualified to be a foreseeable plaintiff.  Since the mainly representative service of the Sony VAIO is responsible to keep up the professional duty of care in Alberta; therefore, they are liable for any kind of problems after their delivery. In addition, Sony Company is responsible to check the quality of the provided services as well since they provided a sole or limited technical service through Alberta; therefore, customers are enforced to reach them in difficulty unless they do live in Calgary.  There is an obvious wrong with their duty of care as a representative service and manufacturer company.  Next problem with their quality of conduct will be discussed.

2.2. Breach of that duty:  Let’s overview the meaning of what the Breach is that occurs when the defendant’s conduct/service falls below the standard of care. In this case, John Bown will propose his arguments in order to show that the Sony Services breached their duty standard of care because they were granted as the only official service, Alberta, to assess the risks of their duty whether it is being properly lived up.  They failed to properly assess the foreseeable risks that eventually caused John Bown’s damages.  Because, SONY Service’s standard of care is the main reason to have them conducted in this way; therefore, they clearly breached.  See below discussion that elaborates the detail.

Since the problem is still over John Bown’s computer, it clearly shows that a breach of their duty is presently available under the Foreseeability Test (FT) that is related to find an answer for a question whether the problem would have been solved by a reasonable person.  The answer for raised question under the FT is obviously positive since the technical staff of Alberta University showed a reasonable solution even without asking for any cost of diagnostic test.  Since the authorized technical service, did not come up with a solution as the plaintiff/claimant expected.  Therefore, both the defendant and Sony Canada owed a duty of care to John Bown.  Sony Canada is also owed a duty because not only it provided limited services, in Alberta, but also it does not check the sustainable duty of standard care with the services.  Therefore, the defendant owed a duty of care to the Plaintiff.

2.3. Causation:  The fact that defendant did not live up his responsibility, negligence, caused the Plaintiff to be suffered with the same problems.  The promise of technical service appeared to be ironic because they breached the standard of their care.  Therefore, they failed to conduct their regular works and promises for their job. The reason for the damage is associated to a negligence of the defendant under the availability of foreseeable test.  Instead, they just replaced the battery simply, that is just needed to use computer without plugging in, and did not touch the real problem itself.  Even they demanded an advance, $ 50, for a diagnostic test but in the end, they were failed to solve reported problem itself. The plaintiff was disappointed with their failure in repairing problems and this caused him to be severely depressed. 

2.4. Damage: The damage caused here is both physical and mental.  There is a significant loss of time and physical cost, due to fact that the John Bown could not perform his conduct on his work due to the sustainable existence of the problem with his computer.  Additionally, another loss of John Bown’s feeling is immeasurable because he was insulted to face up with Sony’s negligence.

3. Conclusion

The authorized technical services of any company are supposed to live up a good quality of services to meet the standard of the customer’s satisfaction or keeping a standard of their care.  As a result, the cased story discusses so far, both the negligence of the Sony service and Sony Canada.