EXHIBIT 1Business and Professions CodeGould Codes Annotated1 ACME ELECTRONICS Leonard J. Fontz, Service Department Manager for the Hometown, Gould store of Acme Electronics (Acme), sat at his desk contemplating his next move. Acme Electronics is a subsidiary of Gooney Tunes Enterprises, Inc., a large media conglomerate. Acme owns more than 200 stores throughout the world. Fontz has been assigned to handle a negligence matter involving Otto Gunter, a customer at the local store. Fontz looked over several letters from Gunter that told his story. In January of 2002, Gunter purchased a Gatekeeper Computer (Nimbus 2002) system from Acme. The computer performed extremely well until October of 2004 when the hard drive “crashed.” Gunter took the unit to the repair department at the Acme store in Hometown. Gunter explained that he thought the hard drive in the computer was defective and sought to have it repaired. In addition, Gunter asked the service technician if he could have his old hard drive back after the repairs were made on the computer. The technician assured Gunter that the service department would return to Gunter any computer parts that would be replaced. The hard drive was defective and was replaced at no charge to Gunter. When Gunter picked up the repaired computer he was also given what was presumed to be the original hard drive that was removed from the unit. Gunter told the repair manager that he was interested in attempting to retrieve the contents of the old hard drive. Gunter asked if Acme could provide this service. The manager indicated that Acme did not provide such a service. However, he provided Gunter with the telephone number of Ron Retriever. The manager indicated that Retriever might be able to help Gunter. Gunter left the store with his repaired computer and the old hard drive and went directly home because he was anxious to contact Retriever. Gunter contacted Retriever and was told that it would cost $800 to attempt to recover the contents of the hard drive and that there were no guarantees as to the extent of the recovery, if any. After several days of deliberation, Gunter decided to spend the $800 and hope for the best. Retriever went to work on the hard drive and was very successful. Retriever was able to recover about 95% of the contents of the hard drive. Retriever phoned Gunter with the good news. Gunter immediately drove to Retriever’s shop, reclaimed the hard drive and the recovered contents, and paid the $800. Gunter then rushed home and viewed the recovered materials. To Gunter’s amazement the recovered materials were not his. What had happened? Gunter concluded that Acme’s repair department had not returned to him his “crashed” hard drive. Instead, he surmised, he was given someone else’s hard drive. In reviewing the recovered materials, Gunter was able to discover the name and telephone number of the true owner of the hard drive he had been mistakenly given. Gunter called the owner, Aaron Gottmilk, and related what he thought had happened. As a result of the conversation, Gunter discovered that he and Gottmilk both had the same computer, that each had experienced a crash of the hard drive, that both had purchased their computers from Acme and had, on the same day, returned the computers to Acme for repair. Gunter also learned that Gottmilk had asked for and received from Acme what he, Gottmilk, thought was his original hard drive. Lastly, Gunter, hoping that their respective hard drives had merely been switched between the two of them, asked Gottmilk if he still had the hard drive. Gottmilk indicated that he had discarded the hard drive. What could Gunter do? He had spent $800 to retrieve materials from a hard drive that was not his. The owner did not need the materials and was not interested in paying Gunter $800 for the retrieved information. In addition, Gottmilk had discarded the “crashed” hard drive he had been given by the repair department at Acme. Thus, even if Gottmilk had received Gunter’s hard drive, that hard drive was no longer available to Gunter because it had been thrown out by Gottmilk. What a mess. Gunter had been through the rollercoaster of emotions. Down when his hard drive had crashed, up when he learned that Copyright 2009, Dr. Leonard J. Rymsza, Dr. Richard Gunther, and Dr. Carol Docan2 Retriever had been successful in recovering information, and back down upon discovering the information was not his and that Gottmilk had discarded the hard drive that was, presumably, from Gunter’s unit. On December 1, 2004 Otto Gunter wrote a letter to Acme describing his situation and requesting reimbursement of the $800 that was wasted on the recovery of information from a hard drive that was not his. Fontz, the service manager, wrote the reply shown in Exhibit 1. After reading the letter from Fontz , Gunter responded by sending the letter shown in Exhibit 2. After receiving the second letter from Gunter, Fontz contacted Jitsy Jetson, the director of the risk management department at corporate headquarters. Following their short conversation, she said that she would look into the matter. Jetson was aware of the results of a recent survey of 600 past negligence cases in the State of Gould. In 80% of these cases the plaintiff was awarded damages. On average the amount awarded was approximately 50% of the amount requested by the plaintiff, excluding punitive damages, which were not included in the study. Jetson, on behalf of Acme, is contemplating settling this case out of court and has asked your legal team to write a report. She is seeking your legal and statistical evaluation of the problems facing Acme. EXHIBIT 1 December 21, 2004 Mr. Otto Gunter 987 Spring Road Hometown, Gould 00086 Dear Mr. Gunter: Your letter of December 1, 2004 has been received. After careful consideration, it has been determined that Acme Electronics has no responsibility for any expenses that you may have incurred as a result of this unfortunate situation. Normally, every effort is made to keep track of parts that are replaced on computers that are being repaired. However, during the first two weeks of October, 2004, our service department experienced a large volume of hard drive replacements to the Nimbus 2002. Due to the large number of hard drive replacements, the service department was unable to maintain its procedure for keeping track of replaced computer parts.