- [Man] This episode of LegalEagle was made possible by Skillshare. Learn to think like a lawyer
for free for two months by clicking on the link
in the description. ♪ Don't care how I want it now ♪ - Yeah, that is manslaughter bordering on negligent homicide. A jury would convict
Willy Wonka like that. Hey Legal Eagles it's time
to think like a lawyer. Today I am very excited to start a brand new series on this channel where I examine your
favorite fictional works to tell you all of the
laws that have been broken during the course of
that movie or TV show. Today we're gonna start things off by examining one of my
favorite childhood movies Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Let's see if I can ruin your childhood as much as law school ruined mine. Be sure to stick around until the end where I give you my verdict as to how much money Willy Wonka owes and how long he's going to jail. A little background about myself, I have been a practicing
lawyer for over 10 years. I am admitted to the bar in five states including the District of Columbia. I have handled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cases both on the plaintiff
and the defense side. And in my spare time, when I have any I teach law students how
to kick ass in law school. - I serve all his TV dinners right here. He's never even been to the table. - So I am imminently qualified to examine a work of fiction to tell you all of the
laws that it has broken. So without further ado let's dig in to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. - [Charlie] Hi Mr. Jopeck. - [Mr. Jopeck] Ah, come
along Charlie you're late. - [Charlie] It's pay day Mr. Jopeck. - [Mr. Jopeck] You're
right, there you are. - Thanks. - Say hello to your Grandpa Joe. - Okay. - Okay big problem right off the bat. Charlie is way too young
to have a paper route. I think this is a child labor violation. Here this is governed by the Federal Labor Standards Act or FLSA which states that no
one under the age of 14 can hold a job in the United States. So later on in this movie,
Mike TV actually mentions that he's 12 years old. And because I think all the children are supposed to be exactly the same age I think Charlie is clearly
under the age of 14. Therefore while Mr. Jopeck here may be thinking he is doing a good thing he's actually committing
a child labor violation. ♪ Oompa Loompa do ba dee doo ♪ - What's happening? - Willy Wonka's opening his factory. He's gonna let people in. - You sure? - It's on the radio and he's giving truckloads
of chocolate away. - [Teacher] Class dismissed! - [Boy] No, no it's only for five people. - Class undismissed. - He's hidden five golden tickets and the people who find
'em will win the big prize. - Where's he hidden the tickets? - Inside five Wonka Bars. You gotta buy Wonka Bars to find 'em. - [Teacher] Class redismissed! - Okay big problem here. This is a clear violation
of sweepstakes law that exists in most states. You might notice that whenever
you see a giveaway on TV there's always some fine print that says no purchase necessary. There is a very, very
good reason for that. The reason is, if you require purchase you're no longer a free
giveaway in a sweepstakes you are an illegal lottery. That's the difference
between gambling in a lottery and a sweepstakes which
is just a giveaway. That's why you always hear
that no purchase is necessary and you can participate in the giveaway without actually making a purchase. Willy Wonka has not added that language and he explicitly requires
you to buy his chocolate bars in order to participate
in the golden ticket hunt. That is a clear violation
of sweepstakes law and my guess is that
he would be on the hook for the millions of dollars
that people have spent buying Wonka Bars in order to participate in this particular sweepstakes. ♪ If you're not greedy you will go far ♪ - I want it now! What's the matter with
those twerps down there? - For five days now the
entire flipping factory's been on the job. They haven't shelled a
peanut in there since Monday. They've been shelling
flaming chocolate bars from dawn to dusk. - Make 'em work nights! - Come along, come along you girls. Put a jerk in it or
you'll be out on your ears every one of ya! And listen to this! The first girl that finds a golden ticket gets a one pound bonus in your pay packet! What do you think of that? - Alright that is another FLSA violation. He is clearly pushing his
staff far, far too hard. They're working for five days straight form dawn until dusk. He's making them work overtime without paying them anything extra. That is a clear violation. That's called a wage and hour violation. I have friends who specialize in these kind of wage and hour violations under the FLSA. And they will tell you that the
damages in this kind of case really, really start to add up because not only do you
have to pay them back pay for all the extra work that they have done but you're probably gonna
have to pay them overtime. And on top of it you're
gonna pay statutory damages. So for the thousands of workers that this man has in his factory he's gonna be on the hook for hundreds of thousands
if not millions of dollars in wage and hour violations. Not good. ♪ Oompa Loompa do ba dee dee ♪ - May I introduce myself? Oslo Slugworth, president of Slugworth
Chocolates, Incorporated. Now listen carefully because I'm going to make
you very rich indeed. Mr. Wonka is at this moment
working on a fantastic invention the Everlasting Gobstopper. If he succeeds he'll ruin me. So all I want you to do is to get hold of just one Everlasting Gobstopper and bring it to me so that I
can find the secret formula. Your reward will be 10,000 of these. - Alright, so what Slugworth
is trying to do here is engage in corporate espionage, basically trying to steal a trade secret. If the gobstopper had
been publicly released then there would be nothing
that could stop Slugworth from just simply buying one and trying to reverse engineer
the Everlasting Gobstopper. However since the Everlasting Gobstopper has not been publicly released it still probably qualifies as a trade secret under Willy Wonka. So by asking Charlie to find
an Everlasting Gobstopper and bring it back to Slugworth he's essentially asking Charlie
to engage in a conspiracy to commit a trade secrets violation. Now I know everyone's going to say, "But Slugworth actually
works for Willy Wonka." But here's the thing, a conspiracy can have different mens rea for different members of the conspiracy. That's how you have a police officer who engages in a conspiracy who's not guilty of the conspiracies all the other co-conspirators. So you might get a weird situation where Charlie has violated
the trade secrets act by engaging in this conspiracy while Slugworth has not. ♪ Oompa Loompa do ba da dee ♪ - Now, will the children
kindly step up here? (man mumbling) - [Man] Floods, fire, frost or frippery. - [Mike TV] Accident,
what kinda accidents? - [Woman] I didn't know
we had to sign anything for this to work. - [Violet] I can't see
what it says in the bottom. - Violet, you first. Sign here. - Hold it. Let me through here, you kids. Violet baby, don't you
sign anything there. What's this all about? - Standard form of contract. - Don't talk to me about
contracts Wonka I use 'em myself, they're strictly for suckers. - Yes, but you wouldn't
begrudge me a little protection. A drop. - I don't sign anything without my lawyer. - [Mr. Salt] My Veruca
don't sign anything either. - Then she don't go in. I'm sorry, rules of the house. - Okay, so Willy Wonka is
trying to get the children to sign a liability waiver to limit how much exposure he has when things go terribly, terribly wrong. Now, I probably don't
need to tell you that if you can't physically read the contract that's going to be problematic for the person that's trying
to disclaim the liability. That's called an unconscionable contract that there is some procedural
or structural problem with the contract itself that makes it unconscionable
for the courts to enforce. And if you can't physically see the tiny print at the
bottom of this contract that is a textbook
unconscionable contract. But on top of that, Willy
Wonka's gonna have some problems with signing a contract
with these children. Only the children here have signed them. They are minors. The parents, while they are present are not the ones signing this contract. When a child signs a
contract, generally speaking, that contract is voidable
at the option of the minor. On top of that this contract
seems to be complete gibberish. Generally speaking with
a limitation on liability you can disclaim things like negligence but you can almost never
disclaim recklessness. This contract doesn't
appear to do any of that. Maybe that's in the fine
print that no one can see. But it appears to be just a
string of legal sounding words that don't actually have any real meaning. So I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Willy
Wonka has not disclaimed any of his liability and he's going to have
problems with civil suits later on down the line for his
negligence and recklessness. ♪ What do you think will come of that ♪ - [Woman] What are they doing there? - [Willy Wonka] Must be
creaming and sugaring time. - [Violet] Well they can't be real people. - [Willy Wonka] Well of
course they're real people. - [Man] Stuff a nonsense. - [Willy Wonka] No, Oompa Loompas. - [Group] Oompa Loompas? - [Willy Wonka] From Loompaland. - Loompaland, there's no such place. - Excuse me dear lady. - Mr. Wonka, I am a teacher of geography. - Oh, well then you now all about it and what a terrible country it is. Nothing but desolate
wastes and fierce beasts. And the poor little Oompa Loompas were so small and helpless they would get gobbled up right and left. A Wangdoodle would eat
10 of them for breakfast and think nothing of it. So I said, come and live
with me in peace and safety away from all the
Wangdoodles and Hornswagglers and Snozzwangers and
rotten Vermicious Knids. - Snozzwangers, Vermicious Knids? What kind of rubbish is that? - I'm sorry but all questions
must be submitted in writing. And so in the greatest of secrecy I transported the entire
population of Oompa Loompas to my factory here. - Okay, so what Willy
Wonka has admitted here is a huge immigration violation. He says that he secretly
transported the entire population of a separate country, of
Loompaland to his factory. A lot of problems here. Number one, I don't see any reasonable way he could have transported
an entire country legally through immigration channels. On the other hand it sounds like the Oompa Loompas were really
facing quite a hardship in their native country. So conceivably they
could have been refugees seeking asylum in the
United States or the U.K. Which actually might have
allowed it to go through. But I don't get the sense from Willy Wonka that he went through the proper channels for an asylum claim either. Additionally it sounds like he made a quid pro quo deal with the Oompa Loompas that he would transport
them from Loompaland, which is a ridiculous sentence to say, to his factory where
they would live and work. And it doesn't seem like
he's paying them anything. That seems like a clear violation of the 13th Amendment's prohibition against slavery and indentured servitude. It really does sound like he has transported these Oompa Loompas away from a place where they were in fear of being eaten alive every day so that they could become
indentured slaves to his factory. ♪ I don't like the look of it ♪ - This is a kids movie right? - Augustus sweetheart,
save some room for later. - Oh, oh Augustus please don't do that. My chocolate must never
be touched by human hands. Don't do that! Don't do that you're
contaminating my entire river. Please I beg you, Augustus. My chocolate! My chocolate, my beautiful chocolate. - [Mrs. Gloop] Don't just
stand there, do something! - Help. - Okay, so Augustus fell
into the chocolate river because there was clearly no hand rail protecting people from falling in. OSHA or the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration requires that there be a handrail built to certain specifications to protect people like
Augustus from falling in. On top of that, Augustus
was touching a food product with his bare, dirty hands
which hadn't even been washed and clearly contaminating
this entire chocolate river. - [Grandpa Joe] Don't worry,
he can't drink it all. - In fact, if we rewind the clip to see the entire chocolate river we can see a number of
health and safety violations. So if we take a look at this scene we can see numerous health
and safety violations that would shut this
factory down immediately. Number one, we can see the OSHA violation that there's no guardrail
protecting the Oompa Loompas from falling inside. We can also see that
none of the Oompa Loompas are wearing hair nets. So all of that green hair is going to contaminate not just the river but all the other food products as well. At least the Oompa
Loompas are wearing gloves so they've got that going for them. On the other hand, Augustus Gloop was touching the chocolate
river with his bare hands and has contaminated everything. - Augustus sweetheart,
save some room for later. - On top of that, there is no segregation between the candies that contain nuts and the candies that don't contain nuts. Which means that anyone could
have an allergic reaction because of cross-contamination. On top of that there appear
to be plants and trees growing on the factory floor itself in addition to probably
mold and other fungus. So there's no way that this
factory could possibly be sterile enough to produce
a food safe product. So all of these violations
in and of themselves would require the factory
to shut down immediately because of violations of the FDA and other health and safety statutes. They're not making any
chocolate any time soon. ♪ Why don't you try
simply reading a book ♪ - Don't touch a thing. (machine whistling) - And in addition to the prior health and safety violations
we just talked about this room appears to have literal garbage strewn about the entire factory floor. ♪ Oompa Loompa do ba dee dee ♪ - What's so fab about it? - This little piece of gum
is a three course dinner. - Bull. - No roast beef but I haven't
got it quite right yet. - [Violet] I don't care. - Oh, I wouldn't do that. I really wouldn't. - So long as it's gum and that's for me. - Violet, now don't
you do anything stupid. - What's it taste like? - Madness, it's tomato soup. It's hot and creamy. I can actually feel it
running down my throat. - Stop, don't.
- It's delicious. - [Charlie] Why doesn't
she listen to Mr. Wonka? - Because Charlie she's a nitwit. - This sure is great soup. Hey, the second course is coming up. Roast beef and a baked potato, mm. - With sour cream?
(Mr. Beauregarde laughing) What's for dessert, baby? - Dessert? Here it comes. Blueberry pie and cream. It's the most marvelous blueberry
pie that I've ever tasted. - [Mr. Beauregarde] Holy Toledo what's happening to your face? - Cool it dad, let me finish. - Yeah but your face is turning blue. - [Mr. Beauregarde] Violet,
you're turning Violet, Violet. - What are you talking about? - I told you I hadn't
got it quite right yet. - You can say that again. Look what it's done to my kid. - Always goes wrong when we
come to the desserts, always. - Violet, what are you doing now? You're blowing up. - I feel funny. - So here Violet Beauregarde
has been permanently disfigured by being basically
turned into a blueberry. - I got a blueberry for a daughter. - Potentially under a negligence
or recklessness theory Willy Wonka is on the hook
for whatever monetary damages are attributed to being
permanently disfigured in that way. And it might sound crazy but there's actually a
very famous law school case called the Hairy Hand case where a doctor promised a normal hand but delivered a hairy hand. And the court had to determine
the difference in value between a normal hand versus an unseemingly hairy hand. So the courts are in a position to determine what the damages are associated with being
turned into a blueberry. On the other hand Willy Wonka might argue that Violet disregarded his warnings and literally plucked the
piece of gum out of his hand against his warnings not to eat it. And that might potentially work. But the thing about products liability is it's often strict liability. Which means the courts don't
actually look at fault per say they just look to causation, did a given product cause the harm associated with someone's damages. So it's possible that comparative fault won't be an issue and Willy
Wonka will be on the hook. ♪ Do be dee da ♪ - [Charlie] Help! We're by the fan! - [Grandpa Joe] Stay away from it Charlie, it'll chop us to bits. We're in trouble Charlie, I can't stop. - [Charlie] It's pulling me in! - Alright so it looks
like the Wonka factory is evacuating the air directly out into the outside environment. And the same with the chocolate river which looks like it was flowing just right out into the
environment into waterways then polluting into rivers and streams. I probably don't need
to tell you that this is an Environmental
Protection Agency nightmare. Who knows what's happening
to the environment because of the pollution that
this factory is producing? He's likely to be fined severely for this kind of environmental pollution. ♪ I want the works ♪ ♪ I want the whole works ♪ ♪ Presents and prizes ♪ ♪ And sweets and surprises ♪ ♪ Of all shapes and sizes ♪ ♪ And now don't care how ♪ ♪ I want it now ♪ ♪ Don't care how ♪ ♪ I want it now ♪ - Yeah, that is manslaughter bordering on negligent homicide. A jury would convict
Willy Wonka like that. Here once again Willy Wonka has taken no precautions whatsoever to protect people from
falling to their deaths as a result of falling
into this equipment. There are no guard rails, there
are no warnings whatsoever. I don't think it would be very
difficult for a jury at all to pin the blame on Willy Wonka and to find that he's responsible not just for the civil
violation of wrongful death but also the criminal violations of negligent homicide or manslaughter because of his reckless conduct and the fact that he is
knowingly putting these people in this situation where
they can easily die. ♪ If you are wise you'll listen to me ♪ - So the factory's yours Charlie. You can move in immediately. - And me? - [Willy Wonka] Absolutely. - What happens to the rest--
- The whole family. I want you to bring them all. But Charlie don't forget
what happened to the man who suddenly got everything
he always wanted. - [Charlie] What happened? - He lived happily ever after. - Yeah, such a heartwarming ending. The only problem is that
because Charlie has won this as a result of the contest he's gotta pay taxes on his winnings. So while Charlie may be
very happy in the moment he doesn't realize that
he's gonna be saddled with a tax bill in the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. So unfortunately he's probably
gonna have to liquidate a large portion of the Wonka factory in order to settle up with the IRS. - The truth is when you
get everything you want you don't really live happily ever after. Sorry. So let's tally up Willy Wonka's civil and criminal liability here. First, Willy Wonka engaged
in numerous OSHA violations which resulted in serious
foreseeable injury. The workplace hazards alone
resulted in the deaths of apparently four children. So let's assume about $20 million
dollars per injured child. That comes to $80 million dollars. On top of that Willy Wonka
engaged in the illegal practice of indentured servitude. I'd peg those civil
violations somewhere around five million dollars
for the Oompa Loompas. And additionally, Willy Wonka engaged in an illegal sweepstakes lottery that probably cost
consumers somewhere between $100 and $200 million dollars
in purchased chocolate which we'll have to disgorge. Which puts Willy Wonka's civil liability somewhere in the neighborhood
of $235 million dollars. - So you get nothing! You lose! - On the criminal side
it seems like Willy Wonka is guilty of numerous
crimes against children including multiple counts
of reckless endangerment. - I feel funny. - Numerous counts of manslaughter and potentially negligent homicide. - [Girl] He's blocking all the chocolate. - I think conservatively
each of those violations could bring with it jail
time of 20 to 30 years. So multiplying that by the four children that are permanently disfigured or dead as a result of Willy Wonka's actions I would say, conservatively
Willy Wonka's going to jail for between 80 and 120 years. - Good day, sir! I said, good day! ♪ Boom ba dee doo ♪ - With sweatshop owner and
murderer W. Wonka in prison Charlie's gonna have to ramp up his skill set pretty quickly. Otherwise he'll have to lay
off all the Oompa Loompas to pay of his tax bill. If Charlie wants to make
candy as great as Wonka's he should probably check out
Skillshare's culinary courses, like Lisa Long's class
on making English toffee. And since Charlie is only 12 years old he's going to have to learn how to run a business on his own. He should check out J. Hutch's class on starting an online
business from scratch. Skillshare is an online learning community that has over 20,000 classes on everything like lifestyle, design and technology. The first 500 Legal Eagles will get two free months of Skillshare when you click on the link below. The free premium membership gives you unlimited
access to must know topics so you can improve your
skills and learn new things. It's like getting a
golden ticket to success without all the child
murder and tax evasion. So click on the link, get
two free months of Skillshare and start learning today. And until next time,
I'll see you in court.
