Legal Question in Personal Injury in Wisconsin

Question: When can you sue the owner of a company in addition to the company?

Details:

I am the plaintiff for small claims court case where we listed both Ace Hardware and the owner of the individual store as defendants.We have purchased stain for our house/deck for the past 30 yrs from the same Ace Hardware. They stopped carrying the oil-based stain we need, recommended we have another hardware store in town special order it for us, and volunteered to color the stain for free so it would match the product we previously purchased from them. Unfortuntately, their employee put water-based colorant in the oil-based stain (which is not compatible). This caused $3,000 in property damage (we have to sandblast the bad stain that separated, discolored, started to come off after snow sat on it, and is slippey when wet to remove it and restain the deck). The store agreed their employee made the mistake, notified the owner -- he is the one that offered us $400 and then rescinded the offer when told damages were $3,000. Their attorney is threatening to come after us for attorney fees if we don't dismiss the owner as a frivolous complaint. Should we take both the owner and Ace Hardware to court as defendants or just Ace? Do we need to verify that Ace store is an LLC?


Asked on 7/19/16, 9:56 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
JAY Nixon nixon law offices

You are in dire need of experienced legal representation as soon as possible, any time that the issue of frivolity is raised in your lawsuit. If any part of your case if found to be frivolous or brought in bad faith, the court can award punitive damages to the opposing party, plus actual, reasonable attorney fees. Those fees and court costs will usually far exceed the amount at stake in a small claims lawsuit. While you might be able to prove your case for the store giving you bad advice on which stain to use, you would probably need qualified expert testimony in order to succeed. It is also far from certain that hardware stores can ever be liable for the advice that they give, since they are not licensed professionals in any particular filed, nor do they charge for such advice.

Answering this question does not make me your attorney, but you can post comments here for clarifications, etc. You can also see past answers to similar questions on AVVO at https://www.avvo.com/attorneys/53566-wi-jay-nixon-1529181/answers.html . Also see 15 years of past answers at http://www.lawguru.com/answers/atty_profile/view_attorney_profile/jknixon . Answers may contain attorney advertising materials. https://www.facebook.com/NixonLawOffices

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Answered on 8/02/16, 8:08 am


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