Paula is 20 years old working for an employee health clinic at a local medical s
ID: 366882 • Letter: P
Question
Paula is 20 years old working for an employee health clinic at a local medical school. Paula files,
runs errands, types correspondence and orders supplies for the office and clinic. She initiates all
of the orders to the appropriate vendor when the nurses inform her that they are running low on
supplies.
However, there is one vendor that calls her regularly to see if they need gloves or syringes. When
supplies were low, Paula would have this vendor fill the order. One day, she received a package
from this company. Inside were an underwater camera and a note thanking her for the business.
A few weeks later the vendor called to get approval to ship more supplies. Paula declined as
informed him supplies were not low. The salesperson became annoyed and reminded her that
they were under a contract and would face a penalty if the supplies were not shipped and paid for
within a specified time period. Paula knew nothing of a contract and assumed that it was set up
before she started working there. The salespersons told her that after payment was received, they
would send her a stereo to thank her for continued business.
Q1: If you decided to reject the gifts, identify who might be affected by your decision and how.
Q2: Explain what each affected person would want you to do about the issue.
Explanation / Answer
Q1. If you decide to reject the gifts no one would be affected by such decision. Because there is no contract between the two and mere sending of gifts will not amount to any kinds of contract. In this case Paula was being bribed by the vendor company. Thus the decision of sending the gifts back would only affect the vendor company as it was a trick to get the supplies approved.
Q2. Suppose here Paula gets affected if the set up was preplanned i.e. before she joined the clinic then she could sue the vendor as well as her employer for the offence of fraud and unjust termination if at all she is terminated.