re: 'Fixer Upper's' Chip Gaines sued by former business partners for fraud

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You LSU business school alumni? They are having event 5/2, but I can't go

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No. I don't have a business degree, but wish I did. I have a law degree, but it's not from LSU.

to be honest I am intrigued by them being ruthless in business

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to be honest I am intrigued by them being ruthless in busine

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Me too.

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He could have created any entirety for this and didn't owe a duty to his partners for this.

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I don't think we know that one way or the other

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That show is great and pisses me off at the same time.

"My budget is $180,000"

"Oh well we have this half acre on a lake with a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath for 150k, which leaves us $30k to completely renovate the entire thing"

Is Waco that fricking cheap?

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I've seen one episode and it must have been that one. It was ridiculous what they were able to do/get with the amount of money they claimed to be spending.

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Lewis and Clark were equal partners with Gaines in founding the Magnolia Real Estate Company in 2007. The suit says that for the first six years, the company largely operated in Waco with a single real estate agent.......

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Since the show debuted, the suit says, Magnolia has grown from a single-agent firm to one that employs “over 93 real estate agents

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For 6 years, they had a single agent firm and then it explodes due to the talents of the Gaines fixing up/renovating houses. If this was a show about real estate firms then I could see some validity of the suit.

Lewis and Clark added zero value to the success of a an off-shoot business that basically had nothing to do with the premise of the HGTV show. The show was not, and is not, about a real estate company.

Legally speaking, what is the purpose of a 'buyout'?

Real estate is can get really shady

You can have the agent with ownership in title firm, realty company, property investment company, and even a lending company.

By monopolizing the market you can essentially guarantee profit to all entities by pulling in one client. Now their are safeguards in place preventing entities from forcing buyers to choose your other entities for work just because they choose one of your entities prior but in an instance like this those are almost meaningless. The buyer will use you for everything and it is perfectly legal with proper notice

It can get pretty complex, and we do not and will not know nearly enough details but I am guessing they will settle and do not want anyone digging around their business ventures

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Legally speaking, what is the purpose of a 'buyout'?

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Legally speaking, there is no purpose. Practically speaking, they probably preferred to use a brand named magnolia instead of dogwood or heart pine because jo anna liked it better.

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He could have created any entity for this and didn't owe a duty to his partners for this. They wanted to use the name Magnolia, but didn't have to.

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Wrong. That's the point. That would be usurpation of business opportunity...another breach. See? That's the rub. Magnolia was perfectly positioned to profit from the success of the show. Chip knew that. He decided to usurp that business opportunity for himself. Didn't matter if he bought them out or started a new entity to do the same thing Magnolia was set up to do.

The typical business scenario involves a recognized fiduciary, such as a corporation officer or director, or a member of a limited liability company or a partner in a partnership, diverting a usually lucrative business opportunity for his or her own personal benefit in direct violation of a fiduciary duty of loyalty. The business tort generally arises where a corporate director or officer, a member or manager of a limited liability company, or a partner in a partnership obtains confidential information from a third party and uses that information to divert a prospective economic advantage to himself or herself.