Directors of a corporation owe fiduciary duties to the shareholders of the company. This means that when directors communicate with shareholders about the company, they have a fiduciary duty to exercise due care, good faith and loyalty. Directors can be held personally liable if they intentionally or recklessly mislead shareholders…
Minority shareholders in closely held businesses generally lack the ability to control the actions of a company which makes them vulnerable to oppression from the controlling shareholder or shareholders. Minority shareholder oppression claims frequently include allegations that the controlling shareholders have funneled company money or resources to themselves and attempted…
Last year we witnessed the filing of a first of its kind putative class-action lawsuit claiming that gift cards that did not contain Braille violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) along with similar state and local laws. Within weeks, more than 240 nearly identical complaints had been filed against…
As we previously discussed here, the Virginia legislature was considering a bill earlier this year that would limit the use of non-compete agreements with certain categories of employees. Earlier this month, Virginia’s governor signed a series of new employment laws including one that bans using covenants not to compete with…
A couple of weeks ago, President Donald Trump made history as the first sitting president to file a defamation lawsuit against a media outlet. President Trump’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit in New York state court alleging that The New York Times published defamatory statements in a 2019 opinion editorial…
ATTENTION BUSINESS OWNERS: we are investigating possible wrongful denials of business interruption insurance claims due to COVID-19. If you would like us to review your policy, feel free to send it along. With stories of COVID-19, the strain on global healthcare, and social distancing dominating headlines, the pandemic’s impact on…
President Trump’s reelection campaign has filed its third defamation lawsuit against a major media outlet in less than two weeks. The news organization named in the latest libel suit is CNN. As with the previous lawsuits that we have written about, the claims of defamation stem from statements contained in…
A building contractor in Minnesota ordered a specific brand of flameproof lumber from a Chicago distributor of commercial building materials. Unbeknownst to the contractor, the distributor substituted its in-house brand of lumber in the order. The in-house brand of lumber had not been certified to meet the safety standards required…
A consulting company agreed to perform cost-reduction work for a hospital. The agreement it had with the hospital specified that the hospital could hire the consultancy to perform additional work outside of the scope of the agreement. The hospital did so, hiring the consultancy to prepare an RFP document and…
Longtime customers of Allstate Insurance Corporation alleged that Allstate determined they were willing to pay higher prices than new customers with similar risk profiles and started hiking their auto insurance rates as a result. The customers sued Allstate, alleging that Allstate failed to disclose its practice of optimizing rates in…