Fall 2009 Ethic's Courts

---

Descriptions and instructions for the "Courts of Ethics" can be found here.
Alphabetical listing of assignments for the "Courts of Ethics" can be found here.
Email listing of court participants can be found here.

The following four trial will be held during Winter 2009 semester:

1. 01/28/2009 - The Case of the "Gimli Flight"
2. 02/19/2009 - The Case of the "Missed Deadline"
3. 03/12/2009 - The Case of the "Missing Link"
4. 04/02/2009 - The Case of the "Enterprising Employee"

---

01/28/2009 - The Case of the "Gimli Flight"

Plaintiff:

• The plaintiff was a passenger on Flight 143.
• Aircraft #604 was flown without working fuel gauges and the rest is history.
• Asking for judgment against defendant who carelessly designed a safety critical flight system.
• Possible witnesses: FFA Official, Ground crew chief.

• The defendant, Chris Critical, designed the software for the Fuel Quantity Information System Processor (FQIS) that manages the entire 767 fuel loading process including the controls of all of the fuel pumps and fuel gauges.
• The software design left little for crew and refuelers to do but hook up the hoses and dial in the desired fuel load.
• The FQIS software on Flight 143 failed to account for a poorly soldered sensor. A highly improbable, one-in-a-million sequence of mistakes by Air Canada technicians and flight crew trying to resolve the problem defeated several layers of redundancy built into the system.
• Chris and his development team followed previous company standard testing procedures.
• Possible witnesses: QA Manager, Pilot Pearson, Psychiatrist.

---

02/19/2009 - The Case of the "Missed Deadline"

Plaintiff:

• The plaintiff is a share holder of XYZ Software Products.
• The defendant was responsible for developing a new, time-to-market sensitive product for XYZ Software Products.
• Although the defendant's past work has been exceptional, he also has a tract record of continually missing deadlines.
• Late completion of product resulted in loss of market share and ultimate failure of product.
• Asking for punitive judgment against defendant.
• Possible witnesses: project manager, sales manager.

• Dan Deadline is a 2nd tier team lead for XYZ Software Products.
• Dan was team lead for 9 programmers and reported to a product project manager.
• Unreasonable completion dates were demanded by management, so Dan just agreed to whatever and pushed forward with the product development.
• Feature creep, changing requirements, and interruptions were common.
• As was anticipated from the beginning, the product development never met management time expectations.
• Possible witnesses: development team member, human resource manager, product customer.

• Example PERT chart.
• Sales reports.

---

03/12/2009 - The Case of the "Missing Link"

Plaintiff:

• The plaintiff is the CEO of XYZ Software Products.
• A software developer (the defendant) was contracted by XYZ Software Products to design/develop a website for all the company's products.
• After the initial deployment of website by the defendant (phase 1), XYZ executives decided that the developer failed to meet expected design quality and that further work by the defendant would not required.
• Upon learning that the contract was terminated, the defendant deleted the website.
• Asking for judgment against defendant for deleting the website.
• Possible witnesses: project manager, XYZ executive.

• Wes Web is a web developer with less than 1 year experience.
• Wes entered into a contract with XYZ Software Products to develop a company website for their product line.
• Wanting to show progress, Wes posted a preliminary but functional website.
• Despite assuring XYZ that the final website would be much better, the contract was terminated.
• Wes took down the website and deleted all website source material.
• Possible witnesses: Co-web developer, human interface expert.

• Contract between XYZ Products and Wes Web.

---

04/02/2009 - The Case of the "Enterprising Employee"

Plaintiff:

• A software developer (the defendant) signed a work agreement with XYZ Software Products before beginning employment.
• After a few years of service, it was discovered that the defendant was developing "unrelated" products for another company during "off" hours.
• Asking for judgment against defendant for entrepreneur work.
• Possible witnesses: XYZ executive, human resource personnel.

• Ethan Enterprise had just graduated from college when he became employed by XYZ Software Products.
• The following circumstances existed when the work agreement was signed:
  • Jobs were scarce.
  • Ethan was married and had school debts. (Of course, his wife was expecting too!)
  • Ethan did not study the agreement and was told by HR that it was just a routine document that everyone has to sign.
  • There were several other candidates waiting for his job if he did not sign...
• Possible witnesses: character witness, lawyer.

• Work agreement signed by Ethan Enterprise.

*Only available if all other main participant positions are filled!