Desperate Air Case
In the Desperate Air case, As the Vice President of Real Estate at Desperate Air Corporation, Nash is facing with ethical dilemmas, and there are some moral reasoning about the conflict of personal and business ethics. Nash was told that pending sale of Florida property potentially had toxic waste buried beneath the surface. Thus, should he mention the hazardous materials to the Fledgling representative before he closed the sale? In my opinion, if I was in George Nash’s position, I would proceed with the sale without disclosing the information regarding what I had heard about the toxic waste. Using Deckop’s decision making models, the ethical decision-making may meet three goals: utilitarianism, profit maximization, and universalism. This means that if people use different perspectives, they would make different decisions.
Profit maximization is actually a subset of utilitarianism, and the utilitarian is often portrayed figuratively as holding a scale, with the benefits on one side being weighed against the harm on the other. According to the profit maximization point of view, compared to harm, the decision may bring more benefit. In this case, Nash is conflicted between remaining silent and closing the sale immediately. Remaining silent will help his company stay solvent which in turns results in people remaining employed. Nash also have responsibilities to the company and employees. While speaking up and informing Fledgling about the toxic waste could delay or destroy the sale his company desperately needs to return to positive cash flow. Compared those two situations, I believed that keeping this sale is the right decision when using the theory of Profit maximization.
Additionally, Florida law states that you do not have to disclose that there is a hazardous substance on commercial property as long as there is not a fraudulent statement about the property. Although Nash had consulted a lawyer regarding the issue, I strongly believe that he may have received faulty advice. Under the common law principle of caveat emptor (or buyer beware) the seller does not have a duty to disclose disputes concerning physical conditions of the property. According to this case, I found that “DAC had conducted a full environmental audit of the property six months earlier and had discovered no problems.” Nash did his due diligence by hiring someone to do an environmental study. The company hired found nothing and a report was submitted to the buyers. Nash also consulted his attorney about what should be disclosed. Fledgling, the company purchasing the property, had the responsibility of performing their own due diligence. While a representative walked the property and found nothing, the article did not state whether or not Fledgling did a full environmental study as well. That should have been part of the purchaser’s process. The Fledgling representative had the same responsibility to obtain an impartial environmental study. Had the representative done so, they probably would have discovered the toxic waste. It doesn’t matter that the DAC report did not include the disclosure. Unfortunately Fledglings representative was at fault here in my opinion.
I believe that using Profit maximization point in this situation is a right decision for him company and himself. As the Vice President of Real Estate at Desperate Air Corporation, his has responsibility to achieve company’s benefit under the specific reason and law.