Examples of Business Law and Ethics in the Buffalo Creek Disaster

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there was a requirement of the state that a permit must be granted before the construction of any dam could have taken place in the Buffalo Hollow at all. Thus, Pittson Coal can be found the guilty under the law of Negligence Per Se - Negligence Per Se (“Per se” meaning automatic) states if you carelessly engage in a conduct that violates a statue, you are automatically liable for negligence. Hence, they are in clear violation of the negligence per se law in this case.

Pittson Coal can be found the guilty under the Strict Liability law for utilizing improper dam engineering and construction techniques and failing to adequately inspect or maintain the three dams along with Buffalo creek. The law that states if a person engages in a conduct that is “so inherently dangerous” that no amount of care can make it safe, then s/he is automatically liable for any injury that results from that conduct no matter what s/he did to prevent anyone from being harmed. In my opinion, improper dam construction and engineering that potentially could lead to devastating consequences fall under “so inherently dangerous”.

3.Causation: The plaintiff must prove that defendant’s breach of duty caused the plaintiff’s injury. Under this requirement, there are 2 kinds of causation. First, actual cause that states the plaintiff must prove that the defendant’s breach of duty did, in fact, cause the plaintiff’s harm and secondly proximate cause, where the plaintiff must prove that his/her injury was a reasonably foreseeable result of the defendant’s breach of duty. In this case, I find Pittson Coal guilty under proximate cause, Pittson Coal failed to address safety warnings about the dam issued by various governmental departments knowing that fact the collapse would mean certain and potentially disaster of flooding.

4. Damages/harm: Compensable injury. The plaintiff must prove s/he was harmed and the defendant will then have to pay compensatory damages to the plaintiffs. As mentioned earlier, the flooding tragedy claimed 123 lives, injured 1000 and also left 4000 people homeless clearly showing direct harm to their lives. Thus, severe harm was done in this case.

Hence, when applying the direct requirements of the Negligence law, negligence per se and the strict liability law, it is clearly evident that the Pittson Coal Company was in direct violation of these statues and should have been convicted in the court of law for their wrong doings. However Pittson Coal applied a very basic defense. Firstly, they said it was not in particular their negligence that caused the flooding but Buffalo Mining’s and also, even the flood was an “unavoidable act of God” and there was nothing they could have done. Blaming the flooding on God instead of human negligence was the perfect cover-up and legal strategy to hide their corporate sins. The executives of the company were NOT convicted for any criminal wrong doings. Although the 625 survivors sued them seeking $64 Million in damages, they settled for 13.5 million. Hence, although Pittson coal was in clear violation of various laws, they realistically managed to get away with “small fines”.