Halbert B. Rasmussen

Partner

Education

  • UCLA (B.A., 1980)
  • Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, (J.D. , 1982) (cum laude)

Bar admissions

  • California, 1983
  • U.S. District Courts, Central, Eastern, Southern and Northern Districts, 1984
  • U.S. Claims Court, 1985
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (1986)

Halbert “Bert” Rasmussen has been practicing law for over 29 years. After a short but memorable stint as associate general counsel to a publicly traded international pharmaceutical company, Mr. Rasmussen joined Manning Leaver in 1984 and became a partner of the firm in 1991.

Mr. Rasmussen has represented car, truck, bus, and motorcycle dealers (and many of their related trade associations) in virtually all legal areas they encounter, including consumer litigation; business litigation; buy-sells; drafting and negotiating dealer agreements with manufacturers and lenders; drafting and compliance approval of F&I forms including conditional sale contracts and leases; entity formation, merger, and dissolution; employment law matters; and compliance program development, implementation, and training. Most recently, Mr. Rasmussen has devoted a large part of his practice to developing regulatory compliance programs for dealers, representing dealers in and out of court in matters involving their franchises, and counseling dealers in buy-sells and buy-ins.

Mr. Rasmussen is the author of several industry compliance books and publications, includingA Dealer Guide to the FTC Red Flags and Address Discrepancy Rulepublished by the National Automobile Dealer Association (NADA) as part of the NADA Management Series and theF & I Compliance Manualpublished by the California New Car Dealers Association, In addition, Mr. Rasmussen is a principal author of the California New Car Dealers Association’sDealer Management Guide. Mr. Rasmussen has written extensively in dealer and professional periodicals, including the “Defender,” published by the National Association of Dealer Counsel (NADC).

Mr. Rasmussen is a member of the Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County and American (Antitrust and Business Law Sections and Forum of Franchising) Bar Associations; State Bar of California. Los Angeles County Bar Association and the National Association of Dealer Counsel (NADC), and has been involved in various civic, community, and charitable organizations.

Notable acheivments for clients include: 

  • A commercial, breach of contract, jury trial that yielded a unanimous verdict awarding the commercial bus dealership's full request for relief;
  • A successful "add point" protest and resulting administrative merits hearing for a new motor vehicle dealer stopping the encroachment of another dealership of the same line make within ten miles of the protesting dealer; 
  • Two, separate, protests and resulting administrative merits hearings before the New Motor Vehicle Board prosecuting the dealerships' protest of termination of their franchise agreements by the franchisor-manufacturor, prevailing on both protests;
  • Trial of a "dealer vs. dealer" dispute involving specific performance and constructive trust equitable claims related to a buy/sell agreement of a new automobile dealership, resulting in a complete victory for the firm's client.
  • Donovan v. RRL Corporation (2001) 26 Cal.4th 261 - successfully argued as amicus curiae that inadvertent advertising error warranted analysis under California's unique doctrine of mistate of fact to permit advertising dealer to be treated in an equitable manner; and
  • Chrysler Corp. v. New Motor Vehicle Bd (1993) 12 Cal.App.4th 621- successfully argued as amicus curiae that failure of New Motor Vehicle Board to render decision within stated time did not automatically throw open the door to the manufacturer being permitted to proceed with the action (termination, add-point, etc.) challenged in the protest

Need a partner or investor? Consider an LLC

This is an article by Halbert B. Rasmussen concerning the flexibility of the use of a limited liability company for automobile dealerships, or for separate operations of a dealership such as a body shop.