Losing Everything and would cost far too much .
Things got worse , words were said that were hard to take back and the nephew left a month earlier than he had originally planned . He also took the hygienist ( his wife ) with him . She had originally planned to stay with Dr . A until Dr . A retired . Three months later the receptionist left Dr . A to go to work for the nephew . She wanted the job security of the younger dentist . Dr . A had told her several months earlier that he was considering retirement . Dr . A decided the only thing he could do was to file a lawsuit against his nephew . Dr . A ’ s attorney asked to see the contract between Dr . A and the nephew . The attorney was especially interested in the restrictive covenant and non-solicitation portion of the agreement . The attorney also wanted to see the practice buy-in and buy-out provisions in the agreement . Dr . A told his attorney that there was NO CONTRACT . Dr . A said he never even considered the need for a contract with his nephew since it was family ! The attorney informed Dr . A that he had no grounds to file a lawsuit . If there had only been a contract , he could have forced the nephew far enough away to salvage most of Dr . A ’ s practice . But since there was no contract in place , there was absolutely nothing legally that Dr . A could do to recover any of his financial losses . Dr . A fell into deeper depression and could not work at all for about four months . His wife was very worried about suicide .
When the dust finally settled , Dr . A had lost more than 90 percent of his practice income to his “ son-like ” nephew . He also lost the best part of his staff and almost all of his quality patients . Dr . A ’ s plans of retirement were totally dashed . Without the sale of his dental practice , he simply did not have the resources to retire . And , now his dental practice had virtually no value at all !
Dr . A finally realized he would be forced to build a practice from scratch at age 58 . Not for retirement , but just so he and his wife could live from month to month . He got a second mortgage on his home to provide for current living expenses and to upgrade some of his older dental equipment .
As you know from the beginning of this article , Dr . A is now slowly but surely coming back . But , Dr . A realizes he will likely have to work until he dies or until he can ’ t physically work any longer . He actually hopes that it will be until he dies because he will probably never have enough money to retire and certainly does not have enough money for he and his wife to live if a disability forces Dr . A to stop practicing .
This very sad story is not as rare as you may think . We have heard numerous stories just as terrible . Don ’ t let this happen to you when it is really so easy to fully protect yourself and your practice .
Contact PARAGON to schedule a complimentary consultation . No obligation … just a very worthwhile education !
© Paragon , Inc . All rights reserved . For more information on this or other PARAGON articles contact PARAGON at ( 866 ) 898-1867 or via email articles @ paragon . us . com . Other articles are available for review on PARAGON ’ s website : www . paragon . us . com .
May / June 2010 • Pennsylvania Dental Journal
31