Something of a legal question

If you make small qunatities of an item (simple stuff, like solar lights) and want to sell them, are there legal complexities involved, or can you get away with a "buyer beware" label?

TIA

K.

Reply to
Kris Krieger
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It probably wouldn't hurt to incorporate and get a business license. When Little Johnny tries a back flip on his skateboard, falls, and cuts himself on the solar light, you'd want your personal assets separate from the business assets.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

Incorporating is cheap and easy, btw. I suggest a LLC. Just go to

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-- $149.00 + state fee

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Guy Macon
Reply to
Guy Macon

Incorporation doesn't necessarily keep your assets separate. There are a bunch of 'i's to keep dotted and 't's to keep crossed if you don't want to have them come for your stuff.

AFAIK if the corp doesn't keep proper insurance & have sufficient assets for the business volume a good trial lawyer can reach right through it and grab your wallet.

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Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

...or go online and fill out the *state* forms, and $ave te $149...

Reply to
Robert Baer

Yep. One of the things that quickly becomes clear when researching all of the i's and t's is that having good legal advice on the front end is a pretty good idea.

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and
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are starting points and many (most?) state and localities have bootstrap organizations.

From a recent The Week's "Only in America" column: A New York jury has awarded $4.5 million to a city detective who fell off his chair and shot himself in the knee. Detective A., 49, retired on a disability pension, but his lawyer said he deserved extra compensation for pain and the end of his career as an amateur "weekend warrior" athlete because the chair he sat down in was "defective." A. is "not a klutz," said his lawyer M. "He's a guy who just leaned back in a chair."

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

"Kris Krieger" skrev i meddelelsen news:Xns9B7FEB101129Emeadowmuffin@216.168.3.70...

You probably need to set up a company and get a product liability insurance.

Reply to
Frithiof Jensen

The question should be put in the different way: would it be worth to sue you. If you are making enough profit so suing you is worth legal expenses, then get ready for it.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

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Reply to
Vladimir Vassilevsky

You don't need to have any profits. Assets are quite sufficient.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

It helps to have prophets who can foretell if there will be any problems.

And always cover your ass-sets :)

I've had an S-corp for almost 20 years, and I've been manufacturing various testing devices and doing design engineering on contract basis for that long. I have always had business liability insurance, which originally cost about $40/month and now is about $120/month because I added more protection for equipment and facilities. So far I have not had any problems... knock on woody...

Paul

Reply to
Paul E. Schoen

Thanks for the replies to my inquery:

From the sounds of it, it's best to not try to go into business/sell anything at all... I'm just planning to make a very few stained glass items (in an extra room in my house) and was hoping to sell enough art/craft items (once my shoulder is fixed) to cover the expenses of my hobby. I'd been hoping to stick solar lights into some of my glass things.

The story about the klutz falling off a chair and getting >$4million was sobering. OK, frightening... I can't even afford the $140/month for insurance that someone had mentioned.

I appreciate all the info and sage warnings, thanks!, I otherwise would have had the pollyanna idea that there is such a thing as 'parameters froacceptable use'.

Tho' it makes me wondwer why teh *bleep* people keep calling this "the land of opportunity"...what a pathetic joke; losing one's home an dlife savings because some moron thinks a stained-glass solar light might work where the proverbial sun don't shine doesnt sound like much of an opportunity at all to me.

Maybe I really *do* need to move to Australia. Or at least, only sell mail- order to there - they seem to have a more sensible attitude when it comes to NOT rewarding moronic abuses of things...

Thanks for all the warnings!

- Kris

(( New National Anthem for the US: "Another one bites the dust" ))

Reply to
Kris Krieger

If you're just selling craft items you're probably safe -- "buyer beware" is kinda implied in that circumstance. If you start putting them in boxes like something on the shelf in Home Depot then maybe not.

Basically if there _is_ a problem and you get sued, it'll be ankle-biter level stuff, because the attorney doing it will know that his contingency fee will be coming out of a small pot. He'll also know that when you get on the stand and the jury sees -- essentially -- one of their neighbors being sued, not Home Depot, that he's going to have an uphill battle to get much out of you.

So if it's really just hobby/craft stuff, you're probably covered with your Homeowner's insurance (but don't take my word for it!) and you're probably not going to get sued in the first place.

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Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

What happens if you only dot your 't's and cross your 'i's? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich the Newsgroup Wacko

Take them to a consignment shop in an artsy-fartsy neighborhood.

Good Luck! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Rich Grise wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@example.net:

Thanks :) I have a couple garden shops which expressed interest, but haven't looked into further venues because my shoulder has kept me from working on much of anything :p - tho' hopefully the MRI I just had on the

23rd will show what's up and what needs to be fixed. So I'm laying some plans in optimistic (hopefully not overly-so) anticipation of getting back to doing glasswork.

Mainly, the insurance comments were *very* disheartening. ((Poss. more so because being in pain for the past few months has itself left me a bit disheartened.)) But then, when I posted the original question, I didn't specify that I was working from a micro-scale/"out of my house" crafts viewpoint, rather than a mass-market or industrial-level viewpoint, and admittedly forgot (oops......!) that most of the folks here probably design for the former. Tim Wescott did mention that there is a difference between a Home Depot-level item, and a craft-show/local-garden-shop-craft item. So maybe that's in my favor: "retired neighbor-dood making pretty little craft thingies in spare bedroom".

I still haven't figured out how to do the solar bit that I'd wanted to do (battery charger, step-up converter to run 4 or 6 LEDs, and all that jazz)

- I couldn't figure out how to alter the application example circuit from using a 9V batter, to use a 5 V source. I really tried, got books and tried to start from the beginning, but I just don't have an "electronics mind", because I couldn't extrapolate from the "book larnin'" to changing the example circuit (much to my frustration). So I'm figuring I'll stick with the ultra-simple type of circuits I'd found via Google (tho' I also have not yet entirely given up on trying to figure it out - too pigheaded to give up totally, heh ;) ).

What I lack in electronics skills, tho', I *think* (again, heh ;) ) I make up for in glass design and execution ability, esp. since I do my own designs, which, given my background, makes them a bit different from most. So I'm anticipating that I shouldn't have *too* much trouble selling a few things. If I can't go through garden shops, there are, as you suggested, various artsy stores over in Houston, and the area is also not without its local arts organizations and craft shows. There are a couple online venues (etsy.com comes to mind), but I have to look into their fees and any other associated costs. So, there are a few venues. The main thing is the business end of it all. I haven't applied for a tax number because for now, I'm just buying retail; I still have to check whether I need a business license to sell *anything*.

Tho' that liability bit is a worry, esp if I want to add an "electronic part", even something as utterly inane as a solar/battery-powered LED...

Reply to
Kris Krieger

crossed eyes could explain dotted tees.

Reply to
Jasen Betts

and

away

I agree with the above poster about craft items or small quantities made at home and sold individually. You may need a local business license depending on your location. I do not think there is any need to incorporate or form an LLC. You are, in effect, a sole proprietor.

If you concerned about danger or harm to a user or to the public, you can get product liability insurance. You need to check with a Lawyer to see how to indemnify yourself against liability if you are worried about it.

In my view, your biggest problem is one of patents. No matter what you make or create someone has patented it or parts of it and you are probably going to be infringing on one or more patents. You can hardly bend a piece of wire these days without running to someone's patent.

I would do a thorough patent search to see what you are likely infringing on. That is also useful for finding out what others did. You can choose to ignore them or possibly get licensed from the patent holder(s) depending on what you find. At your level you probably can ignore most patents in the beginning but if you get big enough you may draw attention.

Good luck with your idea.

Reply to
Bob Eld

I think, as long as you stay battery-powered, your liability exposure should be minimal. Just label it, "Not for internal use", just to be safe ;-)

Good luck with the shoulder. I went several years with pain throughout my left leg, finally to find I had a bad hip joint, bone-to-bone... replaced October a year ago.

I'm good now, climbing trees to prune them, up and down ladders to trim our 12' Christmas tree.

Unfortunately I now have groin pain the doctor's can't decipher. Had a CT scan on Tuesday... it'll probably come back as "We dunno" :-(

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

You end up as an old, drunk, burnt out hippy on usenet, who is 'Living in a van, down by the river'?

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Probably the mechanical strain that comes from supporting something so large and heavy... :)

Merry Christmas!

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