This bill was introduced on January 21 and on first reading was assigned to the Committee on Employment, Labor, and Pensions. The deadline for the House to pass the bill and send it to the Senate passed with no further action. Therefore, this bill will not become law this Session.
If you’ve ever witnessed or participated in the thrilling—but dangerous—act of “cutting donuts,” you may want to think twice. Indiana’s Senate Bill 13 (SB 13) specifically targets this behavior, making it clear that reckless driving in the form of rotational skids is not just risky but now explicitly illegal.
What Does Senate Bill 13 Say?
Under SB 13, knowingly, intentionally, or recklessly operating a vehicle in a repeated or continuous manner with the intent of causing a rotational skid is classified as reckless driving. This type of behavior, commonly known as “cutting donuts,” is typically performed in open areas where drivers spin their vehicles in tight, circular motions, causing tires to screech and marks to be left on the pavement. A good snowfall can make it particularly tempting. The law makes it clear that this act:
On March 13, 2024, the Indiana Governor signed Senate Enrolled Act 18, which, among other things, amends the Indiana Business Flexibility Act with the goal of addressing problems that can arise from the death of the sole member of a limited liability company. The following article is based on our analysis and understanding of SEA 18, particularly Sections 2 and 3.
Basic LLC Principles: Interest versus Membership
Understanding SEA 18 requires an understanding of the difference between LLC interest and membership.
We recently posted an article discussing Senate Bill 417, which revised Indiana’s statute on noncompete agreements between physicians and their employers, Indiana Code 25-22.5-5.5. A physician in northern Indiana may be the first to attempt to use the statute. The case is Lankford v. Lutheran Medical Group, filed in Allen County Commercial Court.
Dr. David Lankford was employed by Lutheran Medical Group, LLC to work at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne as a pediatric intensivist treating patients in its pediatric intensive care unit. In addition to pediatric intensivists, Lutheran employed neonatologists to treat patients in the neonatal intensive care unit and pediatric hospitalists to treat patients elsewhere in the hospital.
According to Dr. Lankford’s complaint, in October 2022, Lutheran eliminated the jobs of the hospitalists and required the intensivists to assume their responsibilities, in addition to their previous responsibilities in the pediatric intensive care unit. In December, Dr. Lankford notified Lutheran that he believed the increase in his responsibilities constituted a breach of his employment contract. He resigned in January 2023.
A few months ago, we wrote an article about a bill in the Indiana General Assembly, Senate Bill 7, that would essentially ban noncompete agreements[1] between medical doctors and their employers. The General Assembly enacted the bill and Governor Holcomb signed it, but only after considerable revision. The ban was narrowed, but remaining covenants not to compete will be enforceable less often.
Summary
After July 1, 2023:
Update: Senate Bill 7 dealing with physician noncompete agreements was signed into law by the governor but in a form that differs significantly from the originally introduced version described in this article. Click here for a discussion of the final version of Senate Bill 7 that goes into effect on July 1, 2023.
Covenants not to compete, or noncompete agreements, between employers and employees prohibit an employee from competing with the employer after the employment relationship ends. Noncompete agreements are common in some industries or professions, particularly those that rely heavily on proprietary information or ongoing relationships with clients or customers.
Noncompete agreements are are part of a larger category of contracts, those that restrain the freedom of trade in one way or another. For covenants not to compete, the restraint is the restriction of a person’s right to make a living. If the restrictions are too severe, they can run afoul of public policy or federal or state antitrust statutes, in which case they are unenforceable.
We previously discussed the Business Entity Harmonization Bill (Senate Enrolled Act 443 or P.L. 118-2017) passed last year by the General Assembly in the following posts:
“In that remote and despotic period, when the sovereign king chartered rights and liberties to his subjects – the people – all governmental powers were assumed to be his by divine right. In him were combined the legislative, executive and judicial powers of government. He was the lawgiver, interpreter and enforcer. When the powers were executed by agents, the agents were his, and responsible to him alone. On this continent we came to the time when the people, by revolution, took to themselves sovereignty, and in exercising supreme political power chartered governments by written constitutions. These organic instruments declared and guaranteed the rights and liberties of the individual, which had come to the people through centuries of struggle against absolutism in government. The majority was to rule, but under restraints and limitations which preserved to the minority its rights. ‘By the constitution which they establish, they not only tie up the hands of their official agencies, but their own hands as well; and neither the officers of the State, nor the whole people as an aggregate body, are at liberty to take action in opposition to this fundamental law.’ Cooley, Const. Lim. (7th ed.) 56.”
Ellingham v. Dye, 178 Ind. 336, 342; 99 N.E. 1, 3 (1912).
When I was in law school more than 25 years ago, I ran across the 1912 decision of the Indiana Supreme Court quoted above. It fascinated me because, at least as I understood the context, it decided a question that brought Indiana to the brink of a constitutional crisis. The case involves an attempt by the Indiana Governor and the General Assembly to amend the Indiana Constitution without complying with the procedures prescribed by the Constitution itself. At the time I thought I might return to the case some day and write an article about it, maybe for a law review, but I never got around to it.
[March 3, 2018. The General Assembly amended some of the provisions created the Business Entity Harmonization Bill, as discussed in a Postscript to this series.]
This is the last in four-part series. The first three parts are here: here, here, and here.
This Part IV describes some flaws of Senate Enrolled Act 443 that we ran across while writing the first three parts. We hope the General Assembly will address them, either in the 2018 session or another.
Indiana Business Law Blog