Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: What type of written response

Counter-Sue the other owners. Feel free to contact me if you need legal help, if the case is in SoCal.

Re: What type of written response

The best strategy depends upon other facts not mentioned in your question, including the health of the LLC, the amount of the debt claimed, and what the original credit-card application and agreement would show about who is primarily liable, who is a guarantor, and so forth, whether you sold the LLC to the current owners or whether all of you were members at the time the card was opened, and whether the complaint is verified.

Without having that information, I can only say that the basic strategy is centered upon answering the complaint in timely fashion. Beyond this, you probably need to get the benefitted parties on the hook, which would mean filing and serving a cross-complaint (which is what attorney Nelson suggests as counter-sue). The cross-complaint would attempt to enforce whatever obligation the new owners incurred to take care of all business debts or to hold you harmless from the results of ongoing operations after your departure.

This may be one of those unfortunate but all-too-common situations where a minority stockholder or member of a small corporation or LLC is asked to guarantee a business account, and does, but upon becoming disinterested in the business at some future time leaves and forgets to tend to his potential liability on the personal guarantees he made when the business looked like a winner and he was all involved and excited and willing to take risks on its behalf, and on behalf of his then co-promoters.