Your bill of sale might read "Box $0.00 Delivery $150.

or stop signing your work.

 

"box"?  what box?  you can't prove i made that box.

11 hours ago, John Morris said:

I have been doing some hunting and pecking. From what I have seen product liability is what may be needed for those of us who want to sell our products. It appears the average cost is about 300 to 500 bucks a year.

Another resource to look into, is craft organization memberships that may have liability insurance included in their memberships for folks like us who want to sell our crafts. I landed on one organization in the UK that with their 35 dollars per year membership their members are also covered for general liability issues that arise from the products they sell, seeing this I embarked on a search to see if there is anything like that here in the USA.

 

I found out that The American Craft Council offers insurance coverage for their members, while not included in the membership dues, they do work closely with an insurer who specializes in our needs as small business craftsmen.

Here is their link:

 

Home

WWW.CRAFTCOUNCIL.ORG

---

The American Craft Council is the leading arts nonprofit cultivating a culture of making. Come join us!

 

Look at their membership page, and see the benefits section.

 

Also, with a little hunting a pecking I found that the AAW also offers insurance through a partner of theirs, I know you are not turning items @Woodman, but I'm only using this as an example of some different search methods you could use to find a more suitable insurance method other than the "out in the open market" kind of general

Note the AAW program is for clubs but will cover individual members in a club setting It is not for product liability.

2 minutes ago, Gerald said:

Note the AAW program is for clubs but will cover individual members in a club setting It is not for product liability.

Thanks Gerald, also, I have found that quite possibly small makers like us, only need General Liability.

10 hours ago, DAB said:

or stop signing your work.

A year and a half ago, when a particularly annoying vendor repeatedly set her large food vending service up close, directed her music box AT me, and let her kid buy a small tray, the lady told me i should put my name on the item . . . That got me thinking. splinters, kids ingesting small shards ...

 

I sign very little of my work. But if an item is good enough, to possibly last generations in the right hands, I'll stamp it.

 

I'm leaning towards a Release of Liability on a signed bill of sale, if I decide to go the sales route. For now, I will create.  My next invention, I have an idea, it is VERY original, to make a box for baked items. I will call it a Bread Box . . . And after that, a board for cups one affixes to their wall. I'll call that one a cup-board.  

21 hours ago, Cliff said:

 I can't count the number of times I've seen all the legal norms, laws, and standards tossed out the window  by sympathetic juries.

 

In your (and Dave's) example there were deep pockets to dig into.

To John's point, if Woodman sets up an LLC with assets of a table saw, some inventory and a modest bank account of four figures... what is your lawyerly advice to the person wanting to sue him?

How do the big box stores and pressure treated lumber mfgs and plywood manufacturers survive?

2 hours ago, Cal said:

what is your lawyerly advice to the person wanting to sue him?

 Armed with a judgement I am able to surround the judgement debtor's home with sheriff's tape I can being a locksmith, a sheriff, an assessor, and an auctioneer and sell of all of the debtor's assets ( everything he owns)  leaving them usually just the wife's wedding ring set and all the costs of the sale are also  taxed to the debt.

The judgement  won't pe fully paid from a meager household so the debtor will carry the debt into the future forever  never being able to get a loan and every employer and potential landlord able to do a simple records search to see the fact of an unpaid  judgement debt.  

The debtor can leave the state  the record follows them there are  ya a very few nations on the planet that  don't have treaties with the USA that encompass the recriprocity of judgement enforcement. Brazil is one.

 

So My advice to anyone who wants to go into business is while the sun shines and you are not under threat of suit: 

Start an LLC.

Sell (or lease on paper)  all your equipment to the LLC, and pay the lease fees from the LLC bank account  you want the money trail of checks and receipts.

Pay yourself a salary from the LLC.  

Rent the physical facilities (your garage or cellar to the LLC and be absolutely faithful about collecting rent and  don't store personal things in that space keep only those things the LLC owns or leases in that  space.  Be faithful about keeping that space separate. Build a wall if you can.

Have a bank account for the LLC and be deadly serious about never  intermingling funds with the LLC  keep it bright line separate from all your other accounts funds and assets. 

See about insurance and use a lawyer. 

 

Piercing the corporate veil relies on the business owner having made the terribly easy mistake of having been a little slothful and intermingling funds and or assets.  Be furiously faithful about never intermingling and you should be good.   

 

Some reading  Don't use the LLC as an Alter Ego.   https://duckduckgo.com/?q=LLC+as+Alter+ego&t=brave&ia=web

Don't comingle https://duckduckgo.com/?q=LLC+and+comingling+assets&t=brave&ia=web

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=LLC+and+comingling+funds&t=brave&ia=web

 

 

If you want to make yourself judgement proof and don't want to do the above:

Have all your retirement funds deposited in a dedicated  bank account and don't  co-mingle those funds with any other funds. Retirement pension payments and SS  are Off Limits  to debt collectors. Keep your other funds in another account because only retirement funds are off limits every other penny is subject to seizure. No joint account.

Have your wife keep her funds in her own separate bank account under her name.

Put your home in the name of your wife and get your's off the title. 

Sell your shop, your truck, your guns etc., to your wife and pay her lease fees to use them and do it all on paper & title your truck in her name. 

Before you pay for insurance have an attorney review the paperwork.

Give your wife your money and have her keep it in her named  bank account and keep very little in yours. 

 

 

@Cliff, but, would all that be reality for a personal lawyer someone hired because their baby choked on Woodmans cutting board? Would any personal lawyer actually take that case if there is very little money in it for them? Talking about Joe Shmo here, woodworker working out of his garage as a side gig and makes 60 grand a year on his day job, owns a home with a mortgage. Does a lawyer look at what's in it for him/her before taking a case? Don't mean to offend lawyers, but the reality is, Lawyers have to make a living too, they have bills to pay, families to support, how much could a lawyer gain by taking on a client who wants to sue Joe Shmo?

Thanks Cliff

2 hours ago, Cliff said:

Start an LLC.

Sell (or lease on paper)  all your equipment to the LLC

Thanks, Cliff.

 

The commercial business insurance agent, the same one who sold me commercial truck insurance on my NEW 2013 TRUCK with no comp or collision (imagine the mess if I had had an accident) told me in a lawsuit, the people who formed the LLC are personally liable, and their assets subject to judgement. "The person suing you would come after the people behind the LLC", is what he mumbled.

 

Working a movie construction set - M.Night Shyamalan - I learned NOTHING is owned by the movie company.  There are no assets - I guess not even the film.  I could not bring a personally-owned 1-to-3 electrical adaptor; a manager bought one and leased it to the movie company.  When I needed a spacing washer for my grinder, they hassled me when I went out and bought one.

 

I've filed Schedule C for 30+ years. Even three of them.  A good money trail, paper trail, digital trail, gives you a good night's sleep.

 

My idea is that Woodman's Woodwork Oddities, LLC would sell stuff I make.  The LLC would own nothing. Not even the table saw.  Maybe inventory would be carried over.  In addition: Someone threw out the idea of Release of Liability fine-print on a receipt 

 

Currently I'm making translucent panels.  Imagine a kid getting a hold of one and taking a bite.  Or a young'un runs her hand along its edge and gets a splinter.  Daddy notices five days later,  takes her to Urgent Care     (I never get splinters, unless I'm handling the stuff. Then I get them all of the time)

 

For now, I'll look ahead at vending when I retire.  Need a sponsor first.  With a garage.  With a 220V sub-panel 

This has been a great discussion, thank you all!

2 hours ago, Woodman said:

Release of Liability fine-print on a receipt 

nope, you'd need their signature and still,  it's up to the jury.

Generally speaking: No written agreement is enforceable against a party who hasn't signed it. 

terms of contract can sometimes be enforceable based on other things  such a conduct of the parties over time ,  the verbal agreements etc but as to an injury  I think  you'd be out of luck.

Edited February 18, 20242 yr by Cliff

4 hours ago, John Morris said:

Would any personal lawyer actually take that case if there is very little money in it for them?

long ago I learned not to make  big decisions based on the presumptions I have about the potential conduct of others. 

Not sure where this came from but if everyone was this paranoid we would all be living in a concrete bunker

It’s hard enough to turn a profit making stuff, what’s the point in handing all your profit to a lawyer so you can’t be sued for what you don’t have. 

1 hour ago, Gerald said:

Not sure where this came from but if everyone was this paranoid we would all be living in a concrete bunker

I agree, I make and sell, not as much as before, sold quite a few chairs, made cabinets for folks, among many other things. Never thought of having insurance to cover a product, I think the reality is folks just don't get sued for selling cutting boards and having the cutting board wind up as a domestic weapon.

I am sure there has been quite a few baseball bats made and sold and were used to bludgeon someone to death, I have never heard of the bat maker (aluminum bat makers aside) getting sued. We've all seen bats breaking in half at the home plate and parts of it go flying into the spectators, still no lawsuit. Our human race as crazy as it is, still has some common sense with things like this.

It's a danged cutting board guys, it's a chair, it's a rolling pin, make them, have fun, and sell. In my humble opinion of course.

1 hour ago, Gerald said:

Not sure where this came from but if everyone was this paranoid we would all be living in a concrete bunker

You mean you don't? I suppose you don't wear aluminum foil hats either? Reminds me though, I need to check the expiration dates on my stash of pork-n-beans.

10 hours ago, Gerald said:

we would all be living in a concrete bunker

Heey!  I like my concrete bunker! 

 

Some of the wood with which I work is brittle.  Even after working the item, splintering can remain an issue.  If I'm going to move into larger shows - move more product - in my Golden Greying Years, I'll want to consider moving from everyday use items to wall hangings and objets d'art  

 

"check the expiration dates on my stash of pork-n-beans" - Yesterday I saw tomato sauce on closeout 2-for-1 with an expiration date only six months away.  What is the world coming to?  I thought it lasted forever! Did't we learn from old Doctor Dolittle novels that it lasts for centuries?

 

 

1 hour ago, Woodman said:

Some of the wood with which I work is brittle.

I know exactly what you are talking about Woodman. Like I told you in another message before, my dad used to work with old Douglas Fir boards, I remember as a kid helping him make "things" and that stuff could easily turn into a small spear if you weren't careful.

Hard, brittle, and sharp!

Last year I brought home some Old Growth Doug Fir that was used as shelving in my old land surveyors office where I work, the shelves were installed in the 60's, when the maintenance guys were demoing the space, that stuff was flaking off and get all in their gloves and the larger pieces were turning into deadly weapons.

 

And I see beginners all the time asking, "What can I make and sell as a side line?"   If they only knew.

17 minutes ago, kmealy said:

And I see beginners all the time asking, "What can I make and sell as a side line?"   If they only knew.

That being said, I would never discourage anyone from a dream of owning a business doing what they love, because there are countless examples of woodworkers making a living doing what they love!