What's your Verdict?

Talia and Heather have been friends through High School and College. Over the year, Talia developed her creative skill in the area photography, creative lighting, painting, and set design. Heather, developed her understanding of entrepreneurism, marketing, and use of social media. After graduating from college the two friends decided to start, Scenes for Dreams, a company specializing set design for galleries, education, and studios.

The two agreed to work the business together for 24 months to see if they could get the business off the ground and used their combined financial resources of $45,000 ($25,000 from Talia and $20,000 from Heather), to start their business. Talia oversaw the creative aspects of designs and development the company and Heather ran the office. There is no written agreement but neither dispute the original discussion.

Twelve months into the business the two had assets that totaled$125,000, liabilities that totaled $150,000 and were in the process of signing two $60,000 clients for work during the next 8 months. At the same time, a previous client of Scenes for Dreams offered Talia a job in New York that would pay her a starting salary of $100,000 per year.Talia informed Heather that she would be leaving the business and asked Heather to return her initial investment of $25,000.

Heather is suing Talia to prevent her from leaving the company because Talia had originally agreed to work as partners for 24 months to get the business up and running and leaving now would essentially end the business and eliminate jobs for their 12 employees.

Discussion Questions

• If you were the judge, in the above "What's your Verdict?" case, how would you handle this situation? What would be your verdict?