Gm, Ford, etc .. have product liability issues, not operations liability issues in a regulated industry - a BIG difference.
If the CEO orders a specific part to be used in a car which has a design defective and the engineers are told to ignore the defect, then he can be held liable for his actions.
BUT ...
When we are speaking of a truck driver who owns the business and he say cheats on his logs, falls asleep and then hits and kills someone, that removes the protection because his actions as the driver and CEO/COO are one in the same.
THEN using my example of the fleet owner telling a driver to do something that will endanger someone or is illegal, they don't have that protection either.
The problem is we don't provide just a service, we are in a regulated industry where there are a few liabilities, one is the safety to ourselves and that of the general public under regulations that are clearly written while the other is to the people who entrust us with their property to move it.
The key word is negligence in these cases and most of the time it is not justified for those who are sloppy operators who take chances and want to capture every penny.
NOW the protection comes into play when you have a cargo claim or when you have billing issues or when you owe a large amount of money to say a broker. These are cases where the protection will be helpful.
Not a big difference at all. Product liability limitations extend only to entities that have no care, custody or control of the manufacturing of the product.
In any industry that designs and manufactures a product, tho difficult to prove negligence, the CEO could be personally held accountable. Tho rarely happens, as done in the other sectors. Yea, there is precedent in the courts, but how many have been challenged and won?
Care, custody and control. All 3 must be proven to prove negligence. Not just 1 or 2.
Sure a drivers logs are the first place an investigation would start and work its way up the chain. As I said, if the higher ups are prudent, the corporate veil will protect them. Even if it is a 1 or 2 man op.
You are missing the point.
The corporate veil does protect assets of officers of the corp. And in many cases even if negligence is proven that yes the corp was negligent, but the CEO was not. There is also precedents for that.
The point you are missing is in your statement above, a corporation offers no liability (asset) protection for officers of the corp. That is not correct.
As with all case law, there is ambiguity.
More times than not, the corporate veil will prevail. That does not mean the corporation can not be held accountable, it means the officers won't be held accountable.
If I as a fleet owner say to a driver they have to take a load that would be illegal to run, then yes I could have crossed the line. But the illegality would first have to be proven.
Your best bet, hire a vet! Please.
