{"id":6054,"date":"2020-11-05T14:54:15","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T19:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/?p=6054"},"modified":"2021-05-21T09:57:25","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T13:57:25","slug":"pa-supreme-court-to-review-veil-piercing-appeal-based-on-enterprise-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/pa-supreme-court-to-review-veil-piercing-appeal-based-on-enterprise-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Intelligencer: Pa. Supreme Court to Review Veil-Piercing Appeal Based on Enterprise Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-6058\" src=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart-1024x576.png\" alt=\"Org-Chart-1024x576\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart-1024x576.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart-1536x864.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart-1000x563.png 1000w, https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart-213x120.png 213w, https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart.png 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted an appeal that could radically alter existing state law on corporate liability based on the veil-piercing theory. The case, arising from a dram shop tort action, is poised to test Pennsylvania law\u2019s \u201cstrong presumption\u201d against piercing the corporate veil.<\/p>\n<p>In the November 5, 2020 edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.com\/thelegalintelligencer\"><em>The Legal Intelligencer<\/em><\/a> Edward T. Kang, managing member of Kang Haggerty wrote &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.com\/thelegalintelligencer\/2020\/11\/05\/pa-supreme-court-to-review-veil-piercing-appeal-based-on-enterprise-theory\/\">Pa. Supreme Court to Review Veil-Piercing Appeal Based on Enterprise Theory.<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted an appeal that could radically alter existing state law on corporate liability based on the veil-piercing theory. The case, arising from a dram shop tort action, is poised to test Pennsylvania law\u2019s \u201cstrong presumption\u201d against piercing the corporate veil. Hoping to recover damages from an affiliated corporation that was not a defendant at trial, the plaintiff in\u00a0<em>Mortimer v. McCool,<\/em>\u00a0was granted an appeal on the basis of the so-called \u201csingle business enterprise\u201d or \u201csingle entity\u201d theory. See\u00a0<em>Mortimer v. McCool,<\/em>\u00a0Nos. 20 MAL 2020,\u00a0(Pa. June 22, 2020). Not currently adopted in Pennsylvania, the theory may be applied to allow a plaintiff to reach the assets of one or more affiliated corporations of the debtor when those \u201ccorporations share common ownership and are, in reality, operating as a corporate combine.\u201d See\u00a0<em>Miners v. Alpine Equipment<\/em>, 722 A.2d 691,695 (Pa. Super. 1998). Courts discussing or adopting the enterprise theory have found its rightful target to be corporate entities that have integrated business ownership and assets to achieve a common business purpose. Thus, in an important sense, by operating what is essentially a \u201csingle business enterprise\u201d split into multiple affiliated entities (often purely for the sake of avoiding liability), owners of such enterprises open the door for the courts to impose shared liability. In the past, I have written about\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/legal-intelligencer-piercing-the-corporate-veil-under-pennsylvania-law\/\">veil-piercing in Pennsylvania generally,<\/a>\u00a0as well as in specific regard to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/legal-intelligencer-piercing-the-corporate-veil-of-llcs-under-pennsylvania-law\/\">LLCs<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/legal-intelligencer-piercing-the-corporate-veil-of-corporate-groups-to-establish-alter-ego-jurisdiction\/\">the \u201calter ego\u201d theory<\/a>. This column addresses the implications of the\u00a0<em>Mortimer\u00a0<\/em>appeal and the \u201centerprise\u201d theory for Pennsylvania corporate liability law.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/pa-supreme-court-to-review-veil-piercing-appeal-based-on-enterprise-theory\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Legal Intelligencer: Pa. Supreme Court to Review Veil-Piercing Appeal Based on Enterprise Theory\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted an appeal that could radically alter existing state law on corporate liability based on the veil-piercing theory. The case, arising from a dram shop tort action, is poised to test Pennsylvania law\u2019s \u201cstrong presumption\u201d against piercing the corporate veil. In the November 5, 2020 edition of The Legal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":6058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[480,414],"tags":[336,416],"coauthors":[535],"class_list":["post-6054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-litigation-and-dispute-resolution","category-publications","tag-legal-intelligencer","tag-piercing-the-corporate-veil","publication_lawyer-edward-t-kang"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Legal Intelligencer: Pa. 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Supreme Court to Review Veil-Piercing Appeal Based on Enterprise Theory &#8212; Kang Haggerty News &#8212; November 5, 2020","description":"In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted an appeal that could radically alter existing state law on corporate liability based on the veil-piercing &#8212; November 5, 2020","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/pa-supreme-court-to-review-veil-piercing-appeal-based-on-enterprise-theory\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Legal Intelligencer: Pa. Supreme Court to Review Veil-Piercing Appeal Based on Enterprise Theory &#8212; Kang Haggerty News &#8212; November 5, 2020","og_description":"In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted an appeal that could radically alter existing state law on corporate liability based on the veil-piercing &#8212; November 5, 2020","og_url":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/pa-supreme-court-to-review-veil-piercing-appeal-based-on-enterprise-theory\/","og_site_name":"Kang Haggerty News","article_published_time":"2020-11-05T19:54:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-05-21T13:57:25+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2000,"height":1125,"url":"http:\/\/localhost\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Org-Chart.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Edward T. Kang","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Edward T. Kang","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/pa-supreme-court-to-review-veil-piercing-appeal-based-on-enterprise-theory\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/pa-supreme-court-to-review-veil-piercing-appeal-based-on-enterprise-theory\/"},"author":{"name":"Edward T. Kang","@id":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/715d97d788a57e99416dcc912bc92bcf"},"headline":"Legal Intelligencer: Pa. 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