What Are The Four Common Reasons Your Business May Be Sued?
Today’s business environment is challenging at best, and small and large businesses are always open to being sued for various reasons.
You’ve spent years building your business, but if you’re sued and fail to take immediate charge of these legal issues, you can suffer severe damage to your reputation and your company’s finances.
Almost any outcome is possible, and if you’re involved in a civil suit, you must minimize this risk in the most professional legal manner possible.
There are far too many ways that you can incur a lawsuit today, but some of the most common sources of business-related litigation commonly involve the following items:
- Employment Discrimination – Discrimination suits are typical, and current or prospective hires may file claims against your businesses for discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, and more.
In every state, including New Jersey, stringent federal anti-discrimination laws protect employees from discrimination and mistreatment based on sex, race, religion, pregnancy, disabilities, age, and many other reasons. You may already feel you’ve taken steps to educate and protect yourself by setting up a well-planned HR process, but that may not be enough. - Breach of Contract – All businesses use contracts to define their relationships with business partners, contractors, vendors, and customers. This is why “breach of contract” is the most common cause of business litigation.
Your business uses contracts to formalize all your rights and responsibilities with other companies and persons. However, contracts are broken, reneged upon, or, at times, poorly written, and a dispute will usually force you to use the N.J. courts to settle your differences. - Infringement on your Intellectual Property Rights – Logos, catchphrases, and other company-identifying intellectual property rights are vital to your company. Copying or misusing them can cause your business money and harm.
Therefore, if you don’t take a proactive and rigid approach to protecting your Intellectual Property, you could lose it altogether. All U.S. businesses must register their copyrights, trademarks, and patents. If infringed upon, they must immediately, aggressively, and legally confront all after parties that attempt to steal or copy their valued IPs. - Negligence Torts – As a business owner, you or your employees may create a circumstance that causes another person to be injured. For example, you have a spill in your store that was not cleaned up quickly enough; this caused a customer to slip and fall.
If the customer was injured, they can and usually do sue for damages to recover lost wages, medical bills, etc. These types of lawsuits have increased dramatically over the years, and you must be prepared to mount a proper and legal defense against them.
Your professional and experienced business litigation lawyer will always work tirelessly to mount the best defense for you and your business at trial. Also, to prevent or mitigate any lawsuits, your business litigation lawyer will work proactively to help you avoid legal liability before it occurs.
Does New Jersey Treat Simple and Complex Business Litigation Cases Differently?
As in all legal cases, some are more straightforward than others and are relatively more easily resolved by your business litigation law team.
However, a case meeting specific criteria may qualify for New Jersey’s “Complex Business Litigation Program.”
Your lawsuit may qualify for this program if the damages (or payment) are at least $200,000 and your lawyer self-designates your case as complex commercial or complex construction. Even if your case doesn’t meet these monetary limits, your lawyer can file a motion requesting inclusion into this program. Also, if the reasons (and facts) are not in your favor, your experienced law team can attempt to exclude your case from the program.
Including your business in this program can be beneficial in many ways, which your skilled law team will explain. Additionally, these cases are overseen by N.J. judges experienced in complex business litigation law.
So, N.J. has legal means to attempt to solve more complex business litigation cases more effectively and expeditiously; your experienced Moorestown business litigation law team will know when to use this advantageous tool.
Usually, this program is indeed used to resolve complex business, commercial, and construction cases, but others can also be included if they meet specific criteria, such as:
- They involve a large number of different parties in the case.
- There are many substantial discovery issues.
- The case could involve multiple experts.
- Your case may include implications affecting general business beyond your claim.
- The case concerns and demands a significant interpretation of business or commercial statutes.
Including your case in this program can be problematic; however, precise legal guidelines must be followed. In making this decision, the experience and thorough knowledge of business litigation of your Moorestown business law team will be invaluable.
What Are The Main Responsibilities of a Business Litigation Lawyer?
Most business litigation lawsuits are almost always highly complex and legally challenging to draft and present to the N.J. courts, where many are ultimately resolved. Litigation lawyers must have specialized skills in these cases. Working with the most successful, thorough, and knowledgeable business litigation lawyers will always allow you and your business to prevail and hopefully win your case legally.
Some of the primary responsibilities of your business litigation lawyer will be to:
- Negotiate and work disputes during contract negotiations and on their interpretations.
- Form and advise business partnerships and interconnected business relationships.
- Manage disputes between shareholders and their concerns concerning management and control of the company.
- Litigate and negotiate breach of contract conflicts.
- Handle more severe disputes with current and dismissed employees, especially if they are disgruntled or possibly filed a discrimination or wrongfully fired lawsuit.
- And much more.
You must note that an experienced business litigation lawyer must know how to successfully negotiate all types of situations during the ordinary course of your business, especially if you are expanding or growing. They must possess the skill set necessary to diffuse difficult situations and calmly and efficiently bring people together, even in highly awkward moments.
Using their specialized skills, especially in written communication, they can often resolve seemingly complex business problems more quickly and at an overall reduced cost to you and your business. By “getting ahead of the issue,” they may be able to avoid that courtroom altogether, thereby minimizing the stress, time, and money it takes to bring the problem to a successful conclusion.
They commonly can look at your business issues from a new perspective, for example:
- They view most situations from a larger perspective that helps to determine the root cause of the problem. This is done by doing a detailed overview of what occurred and collecting all the facts and paperwork pertinent to the situation.
- Determine if experts are needed during litigation.
- Identify specific case law that pinpoints the support or denial of the accusation.
- Write detailed, thorough, and pertinent briefs to the court to support your case.
Today, even a seemingly simple business issue may have far-reaching impacts on your business, so in almost all situations, your Moorestown business litigation law team’s talents are mandatory for your success.
Overview of Common Breach of Contract Litigation.
Many vital contracts with clients, vendors, etc., are done daily, and having these critical documents done correctly and with foresight is indispensable for your business’s future.
However, no matter how well-written a contract is, it’s inevitable that breach of contract disputes will come up, so you must be prepared.
If your contracts are well written, they usually will have already provided legal remedies should a breach occur. When these issues arise, the breach provisions regarding liability, mediation, arbitration, legal jurisdiction, and more must legally prevail. It’s a fact, however, that even with these remedies in place, not all contract disputes can be quickly resolved.
Your skilled Moorestown business litigation lawyers will help negotiate all your contracts and commercial agreements and manage all “breach of contract” litigation when it occurs.
The following are just some of the breach of contract litigation situations your lawyer may manage:
- Intellectual property agreements and business licenses.
- Commercial business-to-business contracts (large or small).
- Buy-Sell Agreements.
- Manufacturing and maintenance agreements.
- Employment contracts and agreements.
- All NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) that your business uses and that you enter.
- Reseller Contracts, negotiations, etc.
- IT contracts (information technology) and related aspects.
- Financing Agreements with banks, investors, etc., and more.
Often, breach of contract issues is only one of many claims in a more inclusive and extensive dispute. Therefore, this litigation requires business litigation lawyers with vast and detailed experience in a wide range of business disputes, such as:
- Anticipatory “breach of contract.”
- A minor breach of contract.
- Fundamental and overall breach of contract.
- A material breach of contract, and more.
That said, you must ensure that your business litigation law team has the knowledge and experience to handle all types of breach of contract cases and a thorough education in understanding general business litigation and the underlying business law.
Are There Any Effective Alternatives to Business Litigation in New Jersey?
Once your professional business litigation lawyer does a complete case evaluation of the circumstances and facts of your case, they may offer you an alternative to direct business litigation.
There, of course, will be times when your business issue is dire enough that something other than direct business litigation in the New Jersey courts will not be practical. However, it’s no secret that most lawsuits settle before trial, and your experienced business law team will always provide this option if it is appropriate and in your best interests.
Every single business litigation case differs, but they all must be approached very aggressively by your legal team. But, in today’s business environment, lengthy, stressful, and time-consuming legal disputes can ruin your company.
First, it must be stressed that the case evaluation provided by your law team will dictate the direction you should take; mediation is often an alternative to litigation. Mediation is a process where an impartial and legally trained individual helps businesses (and private individuals) resolve a legal dispute voluntarily without the ongoing cost, stress, and length of full business litigation.
It’s vital to note that under specific instances, mediation may have advantages over litigation, such as:
1. Listening to the real issues – As an independent 3rd party, the mediator will really listen to all the pertinent issues in your case. In litigation, the real problems may sometimes become clouded by legal technicalities, arguments between councils, and procedural entanglements.
2. Costs involved – The cost of the mediation is commonly less than the cost of preparing a case for trial. Mediation may still be advantageous even if your law team has reached the close of discovery and incurred costs.
3. Flexibility – You have much more flexibility in mediation. Both parties select the mediator, but the court system is structured with many rules and regulations. In mediation, you can design the process, and the mediator will facilitate communication directly between both parties involved. Different cases, however, will warrant different styles of mediation, and your business law team will decide which kind they think will work best for you.
4. Mediation is voluntary and speedy – Mediation is voluntary, and you can never be forced to accept an agreement. The mediator cannot make rulings or decisions. The parties are free to form a resolution that works for both.
Mediation, when appropriate, will usually eliminate the fear, anxiety, and risk of going through the courts and will be able quickly to put the dispute behind them with a satisfactory solution that they have created.
However, always remember that mediation does not always apply to your situation. Your aggressive, knowledgeable, and experienced Moorestown business litigation lawyer will advise you on which legal option is best for you, your business, and your case.
I May Need Business Litigation; How Should I Proceed?
Business litigation is almost a “fact of life” in today’s business climate and is commonly driven by competing concerns. Sometimes, you must set an example that your business is not an “easy mark,” and you will fend off frivolous lawsuits by taking aggressive action.
That said, if your business has been wronged, then significant sums of money, reputation, and even your business’s existence may be threatened.
So, the first thing to do is obtain the professional representation of a Moorestown business litigation law team with a winning history of representing a wide range of businesses in many industries, from sole proprietorships to international corporations. However, be aware that many business disputes can be avoided if a well-drafted contract drawn up by a professional was used in the first place. Solid, well-thought-out agreements will attempt to anticipate problems and include resolutions before they occur; they will be written to minimize any misunderstandings that cause a lawsuit.
The professional business litigation lawyers at the Law Offices of Posternock Apell have assisted Moorestown business owners to competently and aggressively protect all their business issues in numerous and varied legal matters for years.
Whether your question, concern, or problem is large or small, they will work diligently and tirelessly to ensure you have the information and guidance you need. Call them today at (856) 446-3625 and get ahead of any business legal challenge you may be facing.