A cease and desist letter is a formal demand that someone stops allegedly illegal or unlawful activity, like a breach of contract. They are especially common in employment litigation, business litigation, neighbor disputes, and internet defamation. Here is what you can do to protect your rights and interests if you want to file a letter or have received one.
How Do I File an Effective Cease and Desist Letter?
If someone is doing something that harms you in some way and you want to invoke your rights and get them to stop, filing a cease and desist letter against the offender is generally the first step to take in the legal process. It is often the precursor to a civil lawsuit, as it informs the offender that you intend to take the incident to court if it does stop.
Some common situations where you may want to file a cease and desist letter include:
- An employee is violating a non-compete agreement or a non-disclosure agreement
- Someone is not abiding by the terms of a contract
- A former employee is soliciting others in the workplace
- Someone, like a competing business, is spreading libel or slander or defaming your business on social media, review sites, or elsewhere on the internet
- A neighbor is trespassing or trying to adversely possess property
- A commercial tenant is violating the terms of their lease
A strongly-worded cease and desist letter can be enough to stop the harmful activity at once. An attorney can help to make this happen by:
- Telling the recipient exactly what they need to stop doing
- Informing them what legal or contractual rights they are violating
- Describing what steps will be taken, if the recipient does not stop within a specified period of time
- Making the letter look formal and sending it on the law firm's letterhead
- Mailing the letter through certified mail, so there is a record that it was sent and received
Bear in mind, though: If you are sending someone a cease and desist letter, then you should be willing and prepared to continue to invoke your legal rights if the recipient chooses not to comply with the letter. Backing down on your threats of legal action tends to embolden them. Do not make threats that you do not intend to follow through on, or that you are unable to enforce. Make sure to talk about your interests and your ability to enforce them with your lawyer before the cease and desist letter is drafted.
Steps After Sending a Cease and Desist Letter
After you have been notified that the cease and desist letter has been delivered, the next step is to monitor the recipient's behavior closely. Document any violation of the letter, whether it is a clear violation or just a potential one. Also document any negative conduct towards you that is outside the scope of the cease and desist letter – it is not uncommon for recipients to try to continue to lash out against you in ways that evade the terms of the letter or that are not obvious violations of it.
In the best case scenario, the recipient takes the threat of legal action seriously and stops the conduct that was harming you. To the extent possible, you will generally want to avoid the letter's recipient in the future.
In the worst case scenario, the recipient keeps violating your rights or even exacerbates their bad behavior towards you. If this happens, then follow through on the steps that you outlined in the cease and desist letter. You told them what would happen if they persisted with their conduct. They persisted.
What Should I Do if I Receive a Cease and Desist Letter?
Receiving a cease and desist letter – especially one that was drafted by a lawyer – can be nerve-wracking. However, it is important to know that lots of cease and desist letters are sent by parties that are overreaching their rights. In many cases, the party sending the letter knows full well that they are demanding too much or that they have no legal basis for their demands, but they want to see if they can get away with it.
If you have received a cease and desist letter, the best thing that you can do is to talk to a lawyer with subject matter expertise in the issue at hand, right away. This is especially true if the conduct at issue is important to you or impacts your livelihood. An attorney is far more likely to know if the demands in a cease and desist letter have merit or not. Going it alone and getting it wrong can put you in a bad position to defend an expensive lawsuit that costs far more than getting legal help at the beginning. Additionally, by hiring an attorney to respond to the letter, it shows the party that sent it that you mean business and that you intend to fight for your rights.
Some examples of overreaching or baseless cease and desist letters are:
- Claims of online defamation for bad reviews that merely expressed your opinion, rather than a verifiable fact
- Allegations that you have violated a party's intellectual property when your use is clearly under the fair use exception
- Accusations of conduct that simply did not happen
In some cases, cease and desist letters end up being pretextual: The sender has already decided to violate your rights in a certain way, and they are using the cease and desist letter to get what they want or for you to violate the terms of the letter and expose yourself to litigation.
Massachusetts Business Litigation Lawyers at the Katz Law Group
The business and contract litigation lawyers at the Katz Law Group can help with your cease and desist letter. Call their law office at (508) 480-8202 or contact them online for help in Worcester, Framingham, Marlborough, or the rest of Massachusetts.
