From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Tue Jul 15 1997 - 03:21:52 MDT
At 03:10 PM 7/14/97 PDT, Bobby Whalen wrote:
>
>I will freely admit that my understanding of corporate law is limited.
>My basic contention is that a group of individuals (the owners and
>operators) under the umbrella of "INC." should not have any more rights,
>privileges or protections than any other group of free-associating
>individuals. The way I understand things now, this is not the case. Is
>this correct?
Not really. The protection afforded by a corporation is that individuals
generally can't be held responsible for the misdeeds of the entire
organization. Individuals *can* be held personally liable for their
individual actions, within the employment regulations regarding such things
(which are generally applicable to all businesses).
If you, as a businessman, own an unincorporated company and the yokels in
engineering unleash a fatal flaw, you are *personally* liable for their
screwup as sole proprietor of the company. If you were incorporated and
the same thing happened, the most you could lose is your company. The
corporate structure is practically necessary for large businesses. The
necessity of incorporation for small businesses is considerably more
debatable.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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