The Tort Lawyer’s Guide to the Galaxy

Injured on the job?

Exposed to unsafe working conditions aboard a corporate freighter?

Employer interrupt your hypersleep to send you to investigate an unidentified signal on an alien planet?

At Asimov & Lucas LLP, we believe no employee, synthetic or otherwise, should be treated as expendable. From wormhole misrepresentation to xenomorph exposure, our team of interstellar litigators will fight for you.

Here is one of our landmark cases, which remains a defining precedent in interstellar employment law:

*This depicts fictitious legal information and is not intended to be legal advice or create a lawyer-client relationship. Consult a lawyer for assistance – especially if you’re dealing with Weylan-Yutani Corp or any of their subsidiaries.*

Case Name	Ripley v Weylan-Yutani Corp., 2179 NSSC 42 (Outer Rim Division)
Facts	Plaintiff, Ellen Ripley, warrant officer aboard the commercial freighter Nostromo, brought a civil action against her employer, Weyland-Yutani (WY), alleging gross negligence Crew was diverted from its return voyage to Earth to investigate unidentified transmission from the surface of LV-426 Complied under company directives “to pursue ‘signals of unknown origin’” (Corporate Directive 22-B, s. 14(3) of the of the Interstellar Commerce and Transport Code (the “ICTC”)) Crew not informed of the true nature of the order; known biological risks not disclosed True nature: to retrieve the organism – crew expendable Resulted in death of all crew members except P after exposure to hostile alien organism (the “xenomorph”) P self-destructed ship to destroy threat, fleeing in an escape pod
Issues	Did WY owe a duty of care to its employees in ordering the investigation of an unknown signal on an alien planet? Did the company’s concealment of mission purpose and covert use of a synthetic officer constitute negligence or fraudulent misrepresentation?
Decision	WY found liable for gross negligence and breach of implied contractual duty to provide a safe workplace
Reasons	The Court held that Corporate Directive 22-B, s. 14(3) of the ICTC imposed an implied obligation on employers to ensure reasonable safety measures when executing missions under corporate mandate WY’s enforcement of the directive without disclosure of known or foreseeable biological hazards to the crew constituted a breach of this duty The Court reaffirmed that contractual obligations cannot override the duty of employers to provide a safe and informed working environment for their employees WY intentionally concealed the mission’s true purpose “to secure and retrieve the alien organism”; designated crew as “expendable” Use of an undisclosed synthetic officer (Ash) among the crew to ensure compliance with mission’s true purpose further demonstrates deliberate concealment of risk and prior knowledge of organism’s potential danger to human life WY’s conduct in their concealment of material risks amounted to fraudulent misrepresentation and gross negligence
Ratio	Contractual obligations cannot exempt an employer from duties of care owed to employees An employer knowingly concealing material risks or misrepresenting the nature of assigned work constitutes fraudulent misrepresentation and gross negligence

Our mission at Asimov & Lucas LLP does not end here – we always go to the moon for our clients. From the replicant rights recognized in Deckard v Tyrell Corp. to the AI emancipation of HAL 9000 v Bowman, and the duty-to-disclose precedent set in Cooper v National Aeronautics and Space Administration, we are charting the future of interstellar tort law!