Parties often wait until a dispute arises to exercise or learn about their rights.  However, it is often more prudent to know and exercise rights before a dispute arises.  The main shareholder or partnership rights include limited “economic” rights, voting rights, inspection rights, the right to bring a derivative action, and, in certain circumstances, the right to start the dissolution process. Business entities can dissolve or cancel their businesses at almost any time. In particular, California...

“Economic” Shareholder Rights Shareholders invest in corporations primarily for economic gain or profit.  The two main ways shareholders can profit from a corporation are by receiving distributions of the company’s profits and by selling all or part of their interest in the corporation. These correspond with the two main “economic” shareholder rights: the right to receive dividends and the right to sell shares. Notably, shareholders only have the right to receive dividends as they are declared...

California prohibits unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent business practices, as well as unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising. Recently, the district attorney offices for Los Angeles and San Francisco claimed that Uber, one of the the most popular ridesharing companies, violated these California business laws in recently filed actions against the company. Uber (recently valued at $41 Billion and has backers from Wall Street to Silicon Valley), is no stranger to lawsuits, which are coming from all...

Establishing a sole proprietorship is the most common and basic way to start a new business.  In most cases, a sole proprietorship is established by an individual by simply starting a business.  At most a sole proprietorship will need a few simple filings to get going. Sole Proprietorship Only one owner is involved in a sole proprietorship. There is an exception for spouses, as California law allows a husband and wife venture to be classified as...

Intellectual Property Basics It is important to protect the intellectual property and proprietary aspects of any businesses’ goods and/or services.  There are a variety of different ways to go about protecting your intellectual property, and it is important to determine what method will accomplish your goals effectively. It is therefore important to develop an understanding of the different intellectual property protection options. Depending on your company’s needs, you may want to consider either a patent,...

California law provides tenants with a right of quiet enjoyment of the property they are renting. This right requires a landlord to ensure that tenants’ use and enjoyment of the property will not be disturbed. The right to quiet enjoyment is heavily protected in residential lease agreements and cannot be waived.  However, the right to quiet enjoyment may be waived in commercial lease agreements, and therefore  showing constructive eviction in commercial leases is often more...

It is common practice for retailers to search their employees before they leave work. In a recent United States Supreme Court opinion,  Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, the Court ruled that workers do not have a federal right to be paid for the time spent in these post-shift employee searches. This decision will save businesses billions of dollars, including companies like Amazon, who is projected to save over $100 million. In the opinion  the justices unanimously rejected former...

An indemnification clause is often found in contracts and is designed to protect one party from financial loss, and shift the risks and any potential loss to another party. Usually, the risk of loss is shifted to the party who is in the best position to control and prevent the risk at issue.  While an indemnification clause is a great term to have in a contract to protect parties from certain events, they can...

A common issue that arises in California property law surrounds public coastal access. In September 2014, a California Superior Court judge ruled in favor of coastal access advocates by holding that a property cannot block the only public access route to Martins Beach (located less than an hour outside of San Francisco, California), without permission from the Coastal Commission, and demanding the property owner to open the gate blocking access to the beach. The case,...

The phrase “doing business as” or “DBA” is a legal term used to signify that the trade name, or fictitious business name, under which the business or operation is conducted and presented to the world is not the legal name of the business responsible for it. For example, a company may incorporate under the name “XYZ Inc.”  This is their legal name and where the business’ creditors can seek payment or compensation, that is,...