When you partner with a licensed professional, you expect them to do their job to a specific standard. Unfortunately, despite educational and ethical requirements for many licensed professions, the individuals that practice a profession can still make mistakes and engage in wildly unethical behavior on the job.
If your business recently hired or partnered with a licensed professional, only to have them utterly fail to fulfill their obligations to your business, then you may desire justice and compensation for their failure. What are your options when a licensed professional negatively affects your company?
Report the issue to the appropriate licensing board
Licensing boards aren’t just there to manage the bureaucratic process of applying for and renewing licenses. They also have to make decisions about who qualifies for licensing and when someone has violated a profession’s code of ethics or professional standards.
Some of the professions subject to state licensing include:
- medicine
- architecture
- real estate
- accounting
- mold assessment and remediation
- code enforcement
- AC/refrigeration
- sanitation inspectors
- towing
- used part inspection
Many trades and educated professions require state licensing to protect the public from incompetent professionals. If clients or customers with legitimate complaints notify the appropriate licensing board, there could be business or professional consequences for their failure or misconduct. Disciplinary action could include financial consequences, license suspension and censure.
You may be able to seek financial compensation
Whether this situation is serious enough to warrant claims of professional malpractice or there was verifiable financial harm done to your business, you may be able to ask for financial compensation.
In some cases, there may be insurance covering the professional or business. Errors and omissions insurance, as well as malpractice insurance, can help reimburse you for some of your losses. When insurance isn’t enough or a professional doesn’t have the right coverage, you may need to take them to court. Disciplinary action by their licensing board and criminal charges can help you demonstrate to the courts that you deserve compensation for the impact their failures have had on your company.
Knowing when to pursue business litigation and what other steps can help with a lawsuit will benefit businesses dealing with incompetent or unethical professionals.
