What Type of Lawsuits Do LLCs Protect Against

[Steve418]

My question involves business law in the state of: Georgia

I am not sure I fully understand when an LLC is sued and when the business owner him or herself is sued. Let's say someone owns a company that writes advertisements for other companies, and their business structure is an LLC. I have a few hypothetical scenarios to consider here. If the a client is dissatisfied and claims that the advertisement caused their business to suffer for some reason and they tried to sue (as I know that one can sue for anything, the question is simply whether or not they'd win), would they be suing the LLC or the business owner directly? Another scenario would be if the client were to have provided information about a product that turned out to be fraudulent, and the person writing the advertisement was misled into believing the false advertising. As a result, there was a false advertising lawsuit, and the business being sued for the false advertising sued the LLC who wrote the advertisements due to the damages of the false advertising lawsuit. In this scenario, would the LLC be sued or would the individual be sued?

[flyingron]

The truth of the matter is you can't hind from personal liability. You can always be sued personally (and held liable) for your personal acts of negligence. Further, if the LLC is nothing but a sham to hide liability, that "veil" can be pierced.

Where LLCs are of the most help is when you have multiple participants: either multiple members of the LLC or just employees of the LLC. This may shield the members from the acts of other members or of the employees (other than themselves).

Note that NO business entity will protect against lawsuits being filed. They may prevent the plaintiff from prevailing.

[asa_jim]

That principle is the same whether discussing an LLC, corporation, or other limited liability entity. I once had to sue an LLC for tortious interference and I sued both the LLC and the sole member of the LLC individually.