Wednesday, August 12, 2009

All in the Business

Recent class sessions have proven to be useful and interesting. 

Restaurant Law has been especially challenging to wrap my head around. First, you have the law. Then you have all the exceptions, the clauses, the "buts", "howevers", "ifs", and "ors". It is quite maddening! In addition to those, there are the state laws, the federal laws, and the ridiculous outrageous cases. You soon begin to wonder how and why we ended up with these laws. People are unbelievable! However, most of these laws are necessary to protect individual rights and of course it always comes down to money. Woot.

In the 6 class sessions (it's like a crash course) we have covered:

-Contracts: agreements, offers, acceptance, capacity, general assent, duress, formality, performance, bankruptcy, and remedies for breach.

-Restaurant Operations: real and personal property, discrimination, injuries, theft, and sexual harassment.

-Business Organization: corporations, limited liability corporations (LLC), partnerships, sub S corporations.

-Licensing and Liability: insurance, torts, licensing, and taxes.

It has been interesting, albeit confusing. Each day in class we were given about 20 real cases and told to answer what the outcomes were - who was liable for what, was it enforceable, void, voidable, illegal, etc. Our test will be much the same tomorrow, but we only have to give "yes" or "no" answers. Easy, yes?

From this class, I have learned that a person should never enter into contracts with minors, the adjudicated insane (who are running amok in society), and habitual drunks. They can always get out with no penalties. I also don't want to do a partnership. Too messy. Always write contracts for everything, everything, everything! Especially include the details.

I never knew that there was so much to know about the law and all the specific ones that go into my area of business. It is nuts! That's why we have lawyers I guess.

After this class is over tomorrow, I am really going to miss our professor. He was a lawyer before he came to our school. The man is older but is reeeeally good at what he does. He lectures to us and doesn't look at the notes he's provided with us at all, in perfect order. He stops and makes us take "joke breaks", tells us to relax and forget about law for a minute. The jokes are always in good taste, and usually we are all laughing by the end. I loved the ones no one got; he'd chuckle to himself and defend his jokes, saying he thought they were good! Maybe in his former life he'd wanted to be a stand-up comedian, and now he has the opportunity to practice because he has a captive audience. I'm cool with it!

Off to study - two exams tomorrow.

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