It's Inspirational Role Models Month and Legal Assistant, Zac Rader, is inspired by Michael Chabon, who scrapped an entire novel and years of work when he knew he couldn't make it work, but then went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his very next novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Today we celebrate 12 years as Pasha Law! A huge 'thank you' to everyone who has helped us get here, and especially to our amazing clients. We are humbled and honored that you trust us with your legal needs, year in and year out.

Our COVID-19 Experience At Pasha Law

On April 2, 2020, Gov. Abbot issued his first executive order detailing the requirements for non-essential workers to stay-at-home and directing most businesses to indefinitely shut their doors. Like many offices around the country, once the full gravity of our international crisis began to dawn on most of us, the first question Pasha Law asked, with most of the staff being in Houston, Texas, was, are we essential? Before we could answer that question, we had already begun fielding calls from clients who suddenly had to deal with more pressing concerns related to telecommuting, testing, sick workers, and government aid. What if an employee refuses to come back to work due to safety concerns? How do you get out of this contract due to the pandemic? We quickly learned that not only were we essential under the law, but clients were in critical need. 

In a rare decision in favor of businesses, the Franchise Tax Board of the state of California declared that a business whose only connection to the state is due to remote workers complying with the Stay Home order issued on March 19, 2020, does not qualify as 'doing business' and is therefore not obligated to pay taxes. An organization is considered to be 'doing business' if it "has actively engaged in any transaction for the purpose of financial or pecuniary gain or profit." You can learn more about the CA FTB's aggressive taxation policies in this article on our website: https://www.pashalaw.com/california-franchise-tax-board-aggressive-business-taxation/

Apple filed suit against GEEP Canada, a former recycling partner, for stealing, refurbishing, and reselling at least 100,000 products it had been contracted to disassemble. Apple is seeking $31 million CAD (approximately $22.7 million USD), though GEEP claims that the theft was performed by three employees, independently. It was clear that refurbishing and reselling is a part of GEEP's business model, though not a part of the company's contract with Apple, who sites quality and safety as reasons for not reselling refurbished products.

Clark County School District in Las Vegas, NV found itself the recipient of a ransomware virus on Aug. 27th - just 3 days after the start of school. When CCSD refused to pay the ransom, the hackers released data containing social security numbers, grades, and other sensitive information. Many data breaches are followed by ransom demands to prevent the release of sensitive information. With more school districts relying on virtual learning and the support of IT systems this school year, they have become frequent victims in cyberattacks.

If we asked you to name the largest employee-owned companies, which companies would you think of?
How about Publix supermarkets, Parsons engineering, or Amsted Industries (all in the top 10)?
Employee ownership in a company is a way to build in a company succession plan and provide potential tax benefits, and has been proven to have a positive impact on employee engagement and overall company performance. Have you considered an employee ownership structure for your business?

Last week, the SBA and Treasury Department released a more streamlined process for PPP loan forgiveness applicants of $50k or less, further helping small businesses recover from lost business due to COVID-19 shutdowns and restrictions. On behalf of the Treasury Department, Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin stated, “We are committed to making the PPP forgiveness process as simple as possible while also protecting against fraud and misuse of funds. We continue to favor additional legislation to further simplify the forgiveness process.” 

An apparent ransomeware attack on Universal Health Services created a mass computer outage in facilities across the country, rendering some equipment useless and forcing facilities to resort to paper backup charting. UHC is a Fortune 500 company operating over 250 medical facilities and employing over 90,000 people across the entire US. The attack caused what employees described as "a scramble" and resulted in up to 6-hour waiting times in some ERs, though the company has reported that it appears no patient or employee data was accessed or copied.

In 2018, California revised its Automatic Renewal Law (ARL), which imposes detailed disclosure requirements for automatic renewals on subscription services, and businesses have been battling class-action lawsuits since. In September, the California Court of Appeals returned a win for subscription-based businesses when it held that no private action exists under the California ARL. This is a major victory as it prevents consumers from suing companies directly for failure to adhere to the Automatic Renewal Law and ruled that it can only be enforced using previous statutes. 

"Small business leadership does not have to be standing up against an unjust law facing risk of prosecution, but it could be as simple as providing a balanced work life to your employees or leading volunteer initiatives within the community." - Nasir Pasha

Within our current cancel culture, it's not uncommon to see a social media mob tear apart a person's life over a tweet - even to the extent of harassing the person's employer. But what is the employer's liability? We covered a similar topic in 2016 on our Legally Sound Smart Business podcast:https://www.pashalaw.com/employer-held-liable-employees-facebook-post-e259/