| New
on The McTexLaw Business Owner’s Resource Center:
Just
Because You Have Insurance Doesn’t Mean You’re Covered
These days
insurance companies are looking more carefully at their own insurance
policies and denying coverage more often. Why? They are trying to recover
from losses sustained over the past few years and aren’t in a
charitable mood. Insurance coverage has become much more adversarial
between the insured and the insurance company. Technicalities matter.
Complete compliance with the terms of the policy is required. Any deviation
results in a denied claim. Click the headline to read two instances
where the insurance company successfully denied coverage. Federal Ins.
Co. v. CompUSA, Inc., et al., Case No. 02-10768, U.S. 5th Circuit Court
of Appeals, Feb. 11, 2003; Norstrud v. Trinity Universal Ins. Co., Case
No. 2-01-411-CV, Texas Court of Appeals, Fort Worth, January 16, 2003.
Suing
Everyone In Sight: Asset Protection in Action
We lawyers
like for our clients to use separate entities for separate operations.
In this case the client seems to have followed his lawyer’s advice
at least in structuring his business. Sure enough, unexpected problems
developed, and the aggrieved party sued every entity and owner in sight.
He even won at the trial court, piercing this veil and that veil, lumping
the owner and all his entities together into one big bundle of assets.
The plaintiff was licking his chops (as was his lawyer) while the Defendants
reeled. But fortunately the Court of Appeals said “not so fast”
and the Defendants came out with their asset protection plan intact
(and a much smaller judgment), notwithstanding the business owner’s
big mouth. Click on the headline to see asset protection in action and
read about another Court’s ideas on piercing the corporate veil.
JHC Ventures, LP, et al, v. Fast Trucking, Inc., Case No. 04-01-00251-CV,
Texas Court of Appeals, 4th District, Nov. 27, 2002.
Does
Your Business Have a Cell Phone Policy?
From the
title you could assume that there’s a benefit to having a formal
cell phone usage policy for your employees. And you may be thinking
“that’s really splitting hairs; how in the world could I,
as employer, be liable for my employees using the cell phone?”
Well, it’s not about your employee getting a brain tumor from
excessive usage. It could happen like this: business provides employee
with a cell phone. Employee is driving home after business when the
Big Boss Man makes the cell phone go “ringy dingy.” Distracted
by the ring and/or conversation, Employee hits Mr. Gimp, who happens
to have his wife Mrs. Gimp and their three kids Wimpy, Limpy (twins,
no less) and Lame, in the car on their way to Wally World. Click the
headline to read about a few cases like this that have already been
filed, and some that settled, plus some tips and ideas on what sort
of cell phone usage policy, if any, your business should implement.
New on
The McTexLaw Commercial Real Estate Resource Center:
Premises
Liability: Recent Developments
Get a group
of landlords together, say two words, “premises liability”
and watch them squirm. These words create fear because nobody is really
sure what does and does not bring about liability on owners or occupiers
of land. We just know that any injury is a bad thing, and we hope the
insurance policy covers the incident. In one recent case a concert roadie
making around $100,000 per year, stumbled on a piece of concrete at
his motel that was under repair, and won a judgment for $1,511,000.
Yes, that’s just over $1.5 Million. A sloppy contractor, poor
employee training, and a very well prepared plaintiff’s lawyer
contributed to the result. In a second recent case, a natural condition,
mud collecting on concrete every time it rained, caused a “slip
and fall” resulting in yet another jury trial. How do these things
happen? Click the headlines to read about some of the rules of premises
liability and how juries come up with the sometimes shockingly large
damages they award. Koko Motel, Inc., v. Mayo, Case No. 07-01-0322-CV,
Court of Appeals, Amarillo, Texas, Nov. 21, 2002; Rape v. M. O Dental
Lab, et al., Case No. 2-01-3-2-CV, Court of Appeals, Fort Worth, Texas,
Jan. 9, 2003.
INTER-GENERATIONAL
WEALTH TRANSFER STATISTICS
In 1999,
Paul Schervish and John Havens wrote an extremely technical article estimating
that from 1998 to 2052, the U.S. adult population would transfer $41 trillion
in wealth to succeeding generations. During this time period they estimate
there will be 87,839,311 estates of surviving spouses requiring the transfer
of that much wealth. Recent negative economic news had cast some doubt
on the continued accuracy of their projections, so they re-analyzed their
1999 conclusions, and perhaps not surprisingly, concluded they were still
right.
They also
estimate that, of the $41 trillion, $1.6 trillion will be paid in estate
settlement fees (i.e. to lawyers, appraisers, CPAs, and such), $8.5 trillion
will be paid in estate taxes, $6 trillion will be given to charity, meaning
that of the $41 trillion, only $24.6 trillion will make it to the heirs.
In fact,
Schervish and Havens say these numbers are conservative and will most
likely be larger if secular real growth in wealth increases from the 2%
annual rate they used. For example, if the growth rate is 3%, estimated
value of estates goes to $72.9 trillion, estate fees to $2.9 trillion,
and estate taxes to $18 trillion. If the growth rate is actually 4%, the
estate value soars to $136.2 trillion, with estate fees rising to $5.5
trillion, and estate tax collections estimated at a whopping $40.6 trillion.
These are the numbers Congress looks at, and drools over, as they tinker
with elimination of the estate tax.
And the question
raised by all this analysis is, what are you doing to reduce the amount
spent on estate settlement fees and estate taxes? There are ways to reduce,
and in some instances eliminate these fees and taxes. Talk to your lawyer
and CPA today about this today, because most efforts addressing this issue
take many years to work.
Sources:
Millionaires and the Millennium: New Estimates of the Forthcoming Wealth
Transfer and the Prospects for a Golden Age of Philanthropy, Schervish,
Paul G. and Havens, John J., Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston
College, Boston, MA, October, 1999; Why the $41 Trillion Wealth Transfer
Estimate is Still Valid, Schervish, Paul G. and Havens, John J., Social
Welfare Research Institute, Boston College, Boston, MA.
I WANT
TO RIDE MY BICYCLE......
My wife Vera
has done some pretty insane things in her life, including skydiving and
military bootcamp training. Now, she’s signed up to ride her bicycle
from Houston to Dallas over three days, from March 13-15, along with about
50 other folks. This adventure is the Texas leg of the outreach called
“National Bike Ride for the Family,” benefitting Focus on
the Family (FOF), a religious non-profit organization founded in 1977
by Dr. James Dobson. According to its website (did you catch that disclaimer?),
FOF is an international organization with 82 different ministries and
a staff of more than 1,300 employees, reaching a worldwide audience of
approximately 200 million listeners per day in 95 countries.
Vera’s
goal is to raise at least $1,500. Every dollar donated is tax-deductible.
She (read “Mark”) will be covering her expenses during the
trip, as well as transportation to and from the ride (actually, I’m
going to drive her to Houston, drop her off, and let FOF get her back
to the Metroplex), so all donations will go to FOF to help them continue
to provide programs geared to the practical care for families. Current
donations have ranged from $5 to $75.
Feel free
to check out the website at www.bikerideforthefamily.org
and if you would like to make a donation through Vera, please contact
her at vera@artatravel.com for
information and help in doing so (basically it’s as simple as writing
a check payable to “Focus on the Family” and mailing it to:
Vera McPherson, 5225 Old Shepard Place, Plano, TX 75093). Those who donate
through her will receive live updates of her journey.
REFERRAL
NETWORKS
Your new
client referrals are a big part of our continued success, and the same
is true about this newsletter. Please take a moment to think about friends
and colleagues you know who might enjoy receiving our Email Alerts and
forward this to them. Individual subscription information is below.
ARCHIVES
This Email
Alert and all prior McTexLaw Email Alerts, are archived at www.mctexlaw.com/
for your convenience. Feel free to browse through any newsletters you
may have missed.
SUBSCRIPTION
MANAGEMENT
To subscribe
to the free McTexLaw Email Alert, please click
here to send a blank Email with "subscribe" in the subject
line.
To unsubscribe,
click here
to send a blank Email with "unsubscribe" in the subject line.
COMMENTS
This is a
"send only" communication. Please send any comments about this
Email Alert to the author at mark@mctexlaw.com.
back
to top
Close
Window
McTexLaw
Email Alerts are original writings of Mark McPherson, principal attorney
of the firm.
© 2003, J. Mark McPherson. All rights reserved.
|