Legal Question in Business Law in Georgia
Breach of contract on business partnership
Several months ago I bought into a construction-related business. Unfortunately we drew up the ''contract'' ourselves. There are very few clauses, but one of them states that all proceeds will be split 50/50.
Three months into the partnership my partner began collecting checks and living off the money without paying me or our sub-contractors, telling me the whole time that the invoices had not been paid.
He's done this on at least 3 jobs I know of that I've yet to be paid for.
I intend to sue him in Magistrate Court for breach of contract. My main question is do I have to continue to abide by the contract despite his breaching it?
Shortly after finding out about this I went out and formed an LLC on my own (we'd intended to do this but I found out about his embezzlement just before we set it up). Since I'd come up with the company name I used the same name we had intended to use.
A couple of weeks before I found out about all this we received a purchase order for a pretty large job that was made out to the company that I set up, but we did the job together right after I found out about all this.
I contend that he has no rights to that money since it's made out to a company of which I'm the sole officer.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Breach of contract on business partnership
It looks like a mess, and you may have given your partner reason to accuse you of the same thing. Either way, it is beyond what can be resolved here.
Re: Breach of contract on business partnership
Generally, if one party to a contract breaches, the party is excused from performance, but that is a very general rule. You should have a local business attorney review all of the facts and advise you. You also have to potentially look out for a potential breach of fiduciary duty by you as well.
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