What, Me Worry? Tort Liability Risks for Participants in LLCs

Abstract

State legislatures gave scant consideration to tort victims’ rights when authorizing the LLC as a new business option. Nonetheless, resulting LLC laws left untouched agency law principles that preserve personal tort liability claims against individual LLC participants. This Article explains why this residual tort liability path, and related defensive doctrines, offer the best hope for a principled accommodation of expanded limited liability business options and the interests of third party tort victims.

Keywords: agency, limited liability companies, torts