What constitutesfalse advertising or theft of business opportunity?
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What constitutesfalse advertising or theft of business opportunity?
I owned my own construction company for over 10years but was forced to close the business because of the economy. I have not completely terminated the company as I am still in the process of filing bankruptcy. Anyway, I did several multi-million dollar homes in which I am very proud of. One of my employees, whom I fired before the end of the company, has since opened up his own construction company. On his company website, he has posted pictures of several of the homes built by my company and he is claiming them to be done by his new company. I know this is not legal. So what exactly is he guilty of and do I have a case against him if I decide to sue? Also, would I have a case against one of the homeowners if they willingly and knowingly let him take pictures and post them to his site, even though they know very well the work was not his to be claimed?
Asked on July 24, 2011 New Jersey
Answers:
FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 13 years ago | Contributor
Most states have statutes setting forth what constitutes false advertising or theft of a business opportunity. You need to review statutes in your state to see what the specific elements are for false advertising or theft of a business opportunity.
From what you have stated in your question, if your former employee is posting information to the general public on his company website that he actually built homes that your company built through his new company, then he seems to be advertising falsely.
A false advertisement violation is essentially placing misleading or false information in one's advertising.
Theft of a business opportunity is something else. It occurs when someone uses improper conduct to interfere with an existing business relationship between two people where the relationship ends with the purpose that one of the people in the business relationship will now do businses with the person who used the improper conduct to end the prior business relationship.
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