If you are running a business, you are a target for lawsuits. They can come from a lot of different directions.
Dissatisfied customers file actions for fraud, defects, breaches of contract, and malpractice. Even if you did nothing wrong, your brand will suffer when a case becomes drawn out or publicized.
Employees can bring costly actions for unpaid overtime, unpaid commissions, retaliation, discrimination, and wrongful discharge. These cases take up your time, they cause other employees, current and former, to consider whether to join a claim, and the damages and attorney fees can eat all the profits of a fiscal year or more.
Regulatory agencies – and there are a lot of them – can cost you sleep and money. Investigations and actual claims of unpaid sales taxes; unpaid unemployment premiums; unpaid workers compensation premiums; minimum wages, overtime wages; discrimination claims at the state and federal level; liquor license exams; and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigations. The list goes on.
If you catch even a hint of a risk in your business, then you may want to consider a discrete evaluation by a lawyer experienced in the areas of danger. It will be far less stressful on your sanity – and bank account – to pinch off a lawsuit early. Or, you can avail yourself of the many safe harbors available to companies that self-report violations of the myriad laws governing businesses of all kinds and sizes.
Waiting for a problem to go away is not a strategy for success. Take action now to stop the risk from growing.
By: James Langendorf, Attorney at Hurley Law
