Law is defined as “a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority, and having legal binding force (Melvin, 2011). Law dictates every aspect of our day to day activities and gives us guidelines for what is right or wrong, upholds order, and without it civilized life would not exist.

Law in Business and Society

Laws are enforced by the government, both federal and state. Although it may seem as if federal has more power, it is actually the states that have more influence over individuals and business. States, unlike the federal government, cannot create new laws. This job is left up to the three separate branches of the government, Legislative, Executive and Judicial (Melvin, 2011). In a society we are mostly affected by statutory a law, which is broken down into two categories, civil and criminal. These laws affect businesses as well as individuals and breaking them will lead to fines or imprisonment (Melvin, 2011).

After the most recent recession, I believe that businesses are under a microscope now more than ever. With the scandal that came out from big businesses and their top executives, consumers and the government wanted ways to keep illegal activities from happening again. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was put into place “to protect shareholders and the general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices in the enterprise, as well as improve the accuracy of corporate disclosure (Rouse, 2014). SOX makes it, so we as consumers have a more clear view of what goes on behind closed doors of big business. I believe it has helped cut down on unethical business behavior by setting punishments for individuals who want to do things that may hurt others financially to benefit themselves.

I work for a produce company that buys and sells fresh produce within the US to different chain grocery stores. I handle all the logistic as the Transportation Coordinator and work with truck drivers on a daily basis. One major law these truck drivers need to comply with is the hours of service regulation. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, any driver of a commercial motor vehicle must not drive more than 70 hours per week, which decreased from the previous maximum of 82 (“Hours Of Service”, 2014). Drivers must allow themselves rest of 34 consecutive hours if they have worked a total of 70 hours the previous week before driving again (“Hours of Service”, 2014). Truck drivers are also only allowed 11 hours of drive time daily, with a limit of a 14-hour work day (“Hours of Service”, 2014).  This means that once the driver has started down the road they can only drive a total of 11 hours. After the 11 hours have passed they must take a 10 hour break from driving or risk facing a fine if caught. Cutting back the amount of hours a truck driver can drive has affected the produce industry as well as others. Certain commodities need to deliver in a specific amount of time and can only ride in a trailer equipped with a reefer, which is a machine that maintains a specific temperature, for a period of time. Depending on the delivery location, a single driver in a tractor-trailer can make a trip from Southern Florida to Northern

Massachusetts in three days. The issue here is not drivers are given less time to make the same run. Produce has a shelf life and is deliveries are time sensitive. Truck drivers need to get loaded and get the product off as quickly as possible. The risk of hauling such sensitive freight can lead to claims against the truck driver. An example would be some customers may reject the product if they believe it has been on the trailer too long and were no longer okay to put in their stores. The sooner the product comes off the trailers, the better it is for the driver.

Conclusion

Laws separate us from the animals. Without them life as, we know it would not be as orderly or stable as we know it to be. Although many people still break laws and take a risk, our government has come up with ways to punish those who are not smart enough to break them. There will always be much debate about what laws are correct and what are not, but at the end of the day we need to have laws to ensure order. 

References

 Hours of Service. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-ofservice

Melvin, S. P. (2011). The legal environment of business: A managerial approach: Theory to  practice.  New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Rouse, M. (2014). Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Retrieved from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/Sarbanes-Oxley-Act