Business Cases We Have Handled
Over our decades of representing clients in business disputes, we have seen almost every imaginable type of business dispute. Here are some of the more common kinds of cases we have handled:
Disputes Between Owners
One of the owners of a business stole money from the business by having his wife act as bookkeeper and write checks to her husband for “expenses” (this scenario happens so frequently that we tell all our clients never to let one partner’s wife act as the bookkeeper for any business)
One partner in a construction partnership wrote and approved over $1 Million dollars in checks to himself and to his family members—and then claimed that the money was an “advance” when he got caught (We have seen many cases where business partners were sorry that they allowed partners to write checks without oversight)
Business owners attempt to “freeze out” another business owner by secretly agreeing to funnel business opportunities to another business that they own, leaving the original business without customers and the “frozen” partner with nothing. (It is unfortunately common that when a business starts making good money, some of the partners will decide to “get rid of” one of the partners so that they don’t have to share the profits with him)
One partner decides that he “deserves more” than the other partners and begins to steal money from the receipts of the business so that he “gets his fair share”. (This is the most common business dispute between partners that we see: one of the partners convinces himself that he deserves a bigger share, and instead of talking to his partner, he just takes money from the business without asking)
One partner begins an affair with the other partner’s wife, and they conspire to alter the books of the business so that it appears that the business is losing money, when in fact all the profits are going to the dishonest partner
Disputes Between Employers and Employees
A business hires a salesman and promises him a commission on every sale—and then refuses to pay or tries to renegotiate the deal when the salesman is “too successful”. A variation of this dishonest scheme is where the business owner will steal clients away from the salesman and claim that these sales are “not part of the sales commission program”. In several cases like this, we got the salesman the commissions he deserved.
An employee quits—and steals valuable confidential information from his boss that he uses to start a competing business. The employer hired us to enforce a confidentiality agreement and noncompete agreement in the contract.
A business owner hires a man away from another business with a promise that he will become a part owner. After five years, the owner tried to renege on the deal—worth several hundred thousand dollars. The employee hired us to enforce the contract, which we did.
An employer fires two employees—and then claims that the employees couldn’t work anywhere else in a two hundred mile radius doing the same work. Our attorneys got a court order enabling the former employees to work wherever and whenever they wanted.
Disputes Between Businesses
One business promises to deliver top quality new parts but instead delivers a mixture of new parts and used parts—but keeps the money paid for all new parts. We had to file suit to enforce the contract.
A real estate company sells a contractor land, promising that there are no drainage problems—and the contractor finds out that fixing drainage issues will cause several hundred thousand dollars.
A landlord promises a restaurant owner that it would repair fire damage caused by faulty wiring that the landlord didn’t disclose—but then refuses to make payments and doesn’t return phone calls while the restaurant’s owners lose all their customers and their life savings. We obtained a judgment which ensured that the restaurant owner got every dime they deserved—plus their attorney’s fees.
A business delivers all the machines promised, and then the buyer sells the machines but fails to pay for them (multiple cases in which we were hired to make the buyer pay for what he got)
A business performs consulting services for another business and the buyer refuses to pay more than half of what is owed, saying that “that’s all the services were worth” (multiple cases)
A plumbing contractor puts in thousands of dollars of plumbing for a general contractor—and then the general contractor sells the house but doesn’t pay the plumbing contractor (we have handled many cases where general contractors fail to pay subcontractors of all types)
A computer chip manufacturer promises to deliver a chip which would enable two kinds of computers to work together—but the chip doesn’t work and the buyer loses out on a million dollar deal that relied on the chip performing
A business hires a company to design a website, and the website that is produced doesn’t work at all—but the designer still insists on being paid tens of thousands of dollars and hires a lawyer to sue to collect. We were hired to get a reasonable settlement of the dispute.
Disputes Between People and Businesses
A contractor takes money to do a building job, does a little work and then leaves with all the money but the work nowhere near done (this is a common scam in the remodeling and roofing industry, and we’ve seen many examples)
A person buys a crane advertised as “new” and gets a used piece of junk delivered instead. (This kind of “bait and switch” scam is as old a mankind. Our attorneys have handled dozens of cases where what was promised bears no resemblance to what is delivered)
A homeowner sells his house without telling the buyer about hidden foundation problems—promising that the house is in “perfect” condition. The buyer finds out about the problems only after his walls crack and his doors won’t fit anymore. (“Fraud” is what happens when someone lies to get someone else to make a deal, knowing that he is lying even before the deal is made. These cases come in all types and all sizes, but there is one constant: a liar at the start of the deal)
A choreographer accepts a two week job to coach a cheerleading team, and cancels all his other appointments for those two weeks—and then the team decides to cancel the day before work was to start.
A self-employed painter paints a building owned by a “friend” from church—and then the “friend” refuses to pay for the work. (We handle many, many cases where a person’s handshake or spoken promise turns out to be worthless)
A cleaning lady steals valuables from a homeowner and the victim finds out that the cleaning lady’s employer knew she was a thief and that she had a long criminal record before sending her out to clean people’s houses. (This is a “negligent hiring” claim. Employers are not allowed to knowingly send out dangerous employee’s to people’s homes)
A worker at a business is careless and cuts off his finger with a saw while making a joke—and then sues his employer, claiming it is his employer’s fault. (Our attorneys represent businesses who are wrongly sued by their employees)
A worker is thrown from a truck because of the negligence of another worker—and is fired when he makes a claim for worker’s compensation benefits for his broken back (Our attorneys represent injured workers who have valid claims against their employers)
Legal Malpractice Cases
An attorney takes a case and bills his client over $300,000—for very little work and no results. Our attorneys took over the case, got a good settlement—and then sued the first lawyer to get our client’s money back.
An attorney takes a personal injury case but does nothing on it until after the statute of limitations expired—which meant that the client couldn’t bring her case to court even though it was a good case.
An attorney made a bad mistake in tax planning for a wealthy man—which meant that the man’s heirs had to pay several hundred thousand dollars in extra taxes.
A probate attorney used his position of trust to steal from the estate he was supposed to be representing—over $100,000. Our attorneys got a judgment for the full amount and helped to make the case that got the probate attorney disbarred.
