Review Your Unused Sales Tax Permits
November 5, 2003
In late 2001, a Texas lighting-fixtures vendor sued one of its customers, a California company, for breach of contract. The vendor brought the suit in, surprise, Texas. The California customer tried to get the lawsuit thrown out because of lack of “personal jurisdiction.” That means the customer claimed it didn’t have enough presence in, or contact with, the state of Texas to be subject to suit there.
Earlier this year, a federal magistrate judge in San Antonio denied the California customer’s motion to dismiss the suit. Her principal stated reason suggests that companies might do well to periodically review their state sales- and use-tax permits. See Ergonomic Lighting System, Inc. v. Commercial Petroleum Equipment/USALCO, No. SA-02-CA-0031 (W.D.Tex. 03/05/2003).
Contract Simplification
November 4, 2003
I’ve developed a real thing about contracts with incredibly convoluted language. You’ve seen plenty of them — “if X and Y happens, then Z will occur, provided that A is true, and subject to the occurence of B, except that if C is also the case, then D will take place.” I confess to having been guilty of such crimes against language myself.
There is, however, a better way — several of them, actually.