Legal Question in Consumer Law in Pennsylvania

Hi Tracey,

It would depend on the cause of the injury, and the way you run your business. The issue is whether the injured party can "pierce the corporate veil" and recover from your personal assets.

One situation is when the injury was the result of fraud or criminal negligence. In either of these cases, a court may disregard the corporate entity and allow the plaintiff to look to the defendant as an individual. Assuming that's not the case, there would probably be no grounds for piecing the veil on this point.

What's probably a far greater concern for you is whether the LLC was actually operated as a separate and proper legal entity. For its limited liability to attach, the LLC must have been run with the proper organizational procedures, not used for personal purposes and not intermingled with personal assets. That can be hard to maintain when it's a single member LLC run out of one's home. If a court finds that the proper organizational formalities were not abided by (and the test is not clear-cut, the court looks at a variety of factors), the court may disregard the LLC as a separate entity, pierce the veil and go directly after the individual's assets.

If you would like to discuss further over a free phone consult, feel free to contact me anytime that is convenient.

Regards,

Michael J. Duffy, Esq.

Duffy Law, LLC

1-888-414-5773

1500 Market Street

12th Floor, East Tower

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102

[email protected]

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