Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: laws protecting hairdressers

The best answer: move to another hair salon. Generally hair stylists are treated as independent contractors or individual business owners. The deal your wife has with the Salon probably gives her a chair, support services, and deals on product (as well as potentially business insurance, etc). This allows the stylists to move around as they please as long as they honor their contracts. I would first suggest that your wife seek out another salon, or get together with the other stylists and start their own. To the chagrin of a few of my clients (who are salon owners), a stylists clients generally are loyal to the stylist, not the salon. And will follow the stylist to a new salon if given notice of the change (make sure this doesn't conflict with her original agreement, but if handled correctly it can almost definetly be done).

On to the one other issue in your question... the 10% off promotion. The first question to this is whether the Salon had the right to do such promotions under their contract, or secondly had previously done such promotions and could have relied on such previous acceptance to assume that it was alright. If both of these are no, then the owner probably had no right to offer the 10% off and your wife probably has no responsibility to honor it (although this gets into another area of law dealing with apparent authority). Or at the minimum the right to sue for the lost profits from the inappropriately acting owner. I realize this makes her look bad to the client, and their might be potential recourse in this area towards the owner.

Realize that any action your wife takes in not honoring the coupon is going to upset her clients (unless she has a great relationship with them). Further, any legal recourse will most likely be costly and time consuming. Meaning that it is likely in your wife's best interests to honor the coupon, explain the situation to her clients, find a new salon, and then submit a bill for the lost income to the salon owner. Getting an attorney to draft such a letter might be a little more effective, however, I would add that my experience with the field would indicate the likelihood of her receiving any reimbursement without a court order (and even then) is minimal.

Re: laws protecting hairdressers

I would add that the new owner is most likely bound by the contract with the old owner and the salon. So until the new contract period arises, she may have a valid complaint against the new owner for breach of contract.