On your TV screen, a woman lies listless on the couch eating chips before suddenly popping up and skipping through a field of tulips. A weeping teen gazing at his phone in a darkened room wakes up and abruptly begins playing board games with his grateful parents. A gray-haired hunchback walking with a limp transforms instantaneously into a fabulous-looking snowboarding phenom, winning this year’s Masters Games.
I’m not going to name any names, but you’ve all seen the commercials I’m talking about. The ones that, for 27 seconds, make great promises of the miraculous results available in a tiny pill before spending the final three seconds of the ad with someone talking so fast and in such a low tone about all the horrifying side-effects of the medication that we tune it out because we’re so busy calling our doctors to see if such-and-such could be right for us.
Business Owners Beware of the Fine Print
My friends, in case you didn’t already guess, today we’re talking about the fine print, and no one is quite as masterful at the fine print as pharmaceutical companies.
Why? Because that little transformational pill might well be miraculous, like the discovery of aspirin in 1899—called the “miracle drug” because of its pain relief and anti-inflammatory properties. On teh other hand, it might turn out like Fen-Phen, where the promise of a bikini body by summer mutated into a serious heart condition by fall.
In our highly litigious society, fine print is an unfortunate but necessary part of modern business. And the truth is that every business that wants to survive needs to create their own. You never know how your great little miracle product might go sideways, or might be polluted in production, or might be used incorrectly, or might be used correctly but with outrageously unexpected outcomes . . .
Protect Yourself From Fine Print Fear
This year, 43% of all small businesses will be threatened with a lawsuit, and 90% of businesses will be sued in their lifetime. The average liability suit costs around $54,000.
Those are sobering statistics for any business owner, but no matter what you make or what service you provide, you can protect yourself! A business lawyer can be of assistance in spelling out just exactly what your product or service is offering and what it is not.
You keep making products and providing services; we’ll work to keep you in business. Give us a call for a review of your protective fine print.
- March 16, 2023
- Business Law
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