Texas has long been one of the best locations to start a business, and a big reason for this is the liability protection afforded by the business-friendly Texas courts. Most business owners seek to limit their personal liability if something goes wrong with the business. This leads to one of the questions I get most often: Which business structure provides more liability protection to the business owner? The short answer is it depends on what happened.
I believe most owners are concerned with what is known as piercing the corporate veil. “Piercing the corporate veil” is a legal term that means that the owners/members of a corporation or LLC lose the limited liability protection the business entity provided, thus the piercing of the veil of protection. When this happens, personal assets can be used to satisfy business debts and liabilities, not just corporate assets. The result is that individuals start getting named in lawsuits, in addition to the LLC or corporation they own.
When we look at the Texas Business Organizations Code (TBOC) we see that the two most popular business structures, corporations and limited liability companies, have similar protections for owners. Both organization structures limit liability on contract issues, and absent actual fraud or unless some extraordinary circumstances exist, the veil will not be pierced on a contract action.
But it is a little easier to pierce the corporate veil when it comes to tort liability. Businesses get sued for all kinds of torts, like slip and falls, job site accidents, etc… The two prevailing theories used to pierce the veil in a tort action are the alter ego theory and the single business enterprise theory.
The alter ego theory boils down to looking at how the owners managed internal matters, how the financial interests were kept separated from personal interests and the degree of control the individual had over the company. Basically, was the LLC put in place as a shield to liability or were business formalities observed? The courts will look at everything from the existence of a corporate book to the payment of taxes in order to determine the degree the alter ego was employed.
The other theory used to pierce the veil is the single business enterprise theory. This is used to impute liability to companies that share resources and operate as if they were one entity. This is rarely used, but when it is it can considerably open up the pool of damages available to the plaintiff.
There are a number of other things to consider when analyzing business and personal liability when starting a business. For example, when starting a new business, an owner may need to personally guarantee a business loan. No piercing of the veil is necessary to hold the owner personally liability for the guaranteed debt. Oh, and it goes without saying, no business entity will insulate an owner from criminal liability or protect them if their personal actions cause an injury to someone.