Standing

Subscribe to Standing

The self-proclaimed entrepreneur and guiding force behind his soon-to-be ex-wife’s highly successful, multi-office pediatric dental practice known as Kiddsmiles is not smiling after the court in Savel v Savel, Short Form Order, Index No. 006375-15 [Sup Ct Nassau County May 19, 2017], dismissed his claim, among others, to impose a constructive trust upon 50% of his wife’s ownership interest in a series of professional limited liability companies.

The facts of the case, as presented in the husband’s complaint in his civil action, which he filed some months after he filed a separate divorce action against his wife, involve tawdry, self-incriminating allegations of illegal kickbacks for patient referrals from which the husband, who is not a dentist, personally benefitted through his separate consulting company that received the alleged kickbacks under the guise of phony “rental” payments.

Between the governing statute’s ironclad requirement that members of a dental practice organized as a professional service LLC be licensed dentists, and the husband’s admitted receipt of kickbacks for patient referrals in violation of the Public Health Law, it’s no wonder the court dismissed the husband’s claims seeking to enforce illegal arrangements. Continue Reading Divorcing Husband Not Smiling Over Court’s Rejection of Ownership Interest in Wife’s Dental Practice

Over the years I’ve litigated and observed countless cases of alleged oppression of minority shareholders by the majority. Oppression can take endlessly different forms, some more crude than others in their execution, some more draconian than others in their effect.

If there was an award for the crudest and most draconian case of shareholder oppression, Matter of Twin Bay Village, Inc., 2017 NY Slip Op 06024 [3d Dept Aug. 3, 2017], decided earlier this month by an upstate appellate panel, would be a serious contender.

The case involves a bitter dispute between two branches of the Chomiak family over a lakefront resort called Twin Bay Village located on beautiful Lake George in upstate New York. In 1957, the husband-and-wife founders, Stephan and Eleonora Chomiak, opened the summer resort on land they owned. They and their two sons, Leo and Vladimir, together ran the business until 1970 when they transferred ownership of the land and business to newly-formed Twin Bay Village, Inc. owned 26% by each parent and 24% by each son. Continue Reading And the Award For Most Oppressive Conduct By a Majority Shareholder Goes to . . .

The third time definitely wasn’t a charm for the plaintiff in Austin v Gould, 2017 NY Slip Op 31494(U) [Sup Ct NY County July 13, 2017], in which the court dismissed ill-pleaded claims for “unfettered and unlimited access to all books and records” of a series of Delaware limited liability companies and their wholly-owned real estate subsidiaries.

The decision by Manhattan Commercial Division Justice O. Peter Sherwood is the latest in a series of trial and appellate court rulings, spread over seven years and three separate lawsuits, rejecting claims by the LLCs’ non-managing one-third owner against the managing two-thirds owner allegedly for failing to distribute millions in management and acquisition fees.

The plaintiff’s two prior lawsuits — the first filed in 2010 and, after its dismissal, the second filed in 2013 — hit dead ends for various reasons including untimeliness and pleading deficiencies. The third lawsuit, filed in 2016, asserted claims for access to the LLCs’ books and records along with damages claims for breach of fiduciary duty and conversion. Continue Reading Books and Records Case Illustrates Crucial Importance of Pre-Suit Demand

A business’s failure to pay state taxes can be a problem if the entity later wants to bring a lawsuit, or its non-controlling owners want to sue on the entity’s behalf.

Under Section 203-a of the New York Tax Law, a New York business entity’s failure to pay franchise taxes for two years can result in automatic dissolution of the entity by proclamation of the New York State Secretary of State. Once a corporation is dissolved by proclamation for failure to pay franchise tax, it “does not enjoy the right to bring suit in the court of this state, except in [very] limited respects specifically permitted by statute.” Moran Enterprises, Inc. v Hurst, 66 AD3d 972 [2d Dept 2009].

What happens when an out-of-state entity, or shareholders on the entity’s behalf, attempt to sue in a New York court, despite the business not having paid taxes for several years in its home state? New York County Commercial Division Justice Anil C. Singh recently considering that question, specifically with respect to a Delaware entity, in Juma Technology Corp. v Servidio, Decision and Order, Index No. 151483/2016 [Sup Ct, NY County May 24, 2017]. Continue Reading Minority Shareholders’ Derivative Suit Foiled by Voiding of Corporation’s Charter for Nonpayment of Taxes

Food-Fight1A little over three years ago I reported on the first round of a fascinating “food fight” among four siblings, each of whom is a 25% shareholder of a Brooklyn-based, second-generation food distributor known as Jersey Lynne Farms, Inc. (the “Corporation”), and each of whom also is a 25% member of Catarina Realty, LLC (the “LLC”) which leases its sole realty asset to the Corporation.

The occasion back then was the court’s decision in Borriello v Loconte denying a dismissal motion in a derivative suit brought by Dorine Borriello on the LLC’s behalf in which she alleged that her three siblings breached fiduciary duty by leasing its realty to the Corporation at a drastically below-market rent and by imposing on the LLC certain expenses that ought to be borne by the Corporation as tenant.

In 2011 — the same year her siblings entered into the challenged lease — they ousted Dorine as a director, officer, and employee of the Corporation. In 2012 Dorine and her siblings negotiated a Separation Agreement and General Release setting forth terms for payment of compensation and benefits along with non-compete and non-disclosure provisions. The agreement left intact Dorine’s 25% stock interest in the Corporation.

Dorine’s derivative suit filed in 2013 claimed that the 2011 below-market lease rendered the LLC unprofitable while increasing the Corporation’s income used to pay salaries and other benefits to her siblings. The first round went to Dorine when the court ruled that her General Release did not encompass her derivative claim and enjoined her siblings from advancing their legal expenses from LLC funds.

In the end, however, and subject to any appeals Dorine may bring, it appears that the siblings have won the food fight’s final rounds. Continue Reading “Food Fight” Sequel Ends Badly for Ousted Sibling

StandingThe rules of “standing” in business divorce litigation generally require that the plaintiff have an ownership interest in the business entity at the time of the alleged wrongful conduct and, for derivative claims brought on the entity’s behalf, throughout the litigation.

In Lewis v Alcobi, 2017 NY Slip Op 30664(U) [Sup Ct NY County Apr. 6, 2017], Manhattan Commercial Division Justice Anil C. Singh considered whether a parent’s assignment of her young daughter’s membership interest in a limited liability company as security for the other parent’s unpaid debt deprived the daughter of standing to sue, despite the daughter’s claim to have received no consideration for the assignment.

The case provides useful lessons for litigating disputes of this sort and, perhaps more importantly, for transactional attorneys considering the use of LLC membership interests to secure payment obligations. Continue Reading Assignment of LLC Interest Defeats Standing Despite Alleged Lack of Consideration

litigiousThe U.S. reportedly has the world’s highest number of lawyers per capita (1 for every 300 people) and the 5th highest number of lawsuits per capita (74.5 for every 1,000 people, topped only by Germany, Sweden, Israel, and Austria).

If, as it appears, litigation has become a national pastime in the U.S., then why, when we describe someone as having a “litigious nature,” does that label carry such opprobrium? Is there an unspoken assumption that anyone who brings a multitude of lawsuits must not have meritorious claims, or has ulterior motives to sue? Then again, we recently awarded the presidency to someone who, according to a USA Today analysis, has sued or been sued in 3,500 cases over the last 3 decades.

These observations are spurred by a recent court decision in Pokoik v Norsel Realties, 2017 NY Slip Op 50459(U) [Sup Ct NY County Apr. 12, 2017], in which Manhattan Commercial Division Justice Jeffrey K. Oing cited the plaintiff’s “litigious nature” among the factors supporting dismissal of his derivative lawsuit brought against the fellow members of a real estate partnership, some of whom are relatives of the plaintiff, Leon Pokoik. Granted, it was not cited as the primary factor, but it’s one of those atmospheric factors in a litigation whose impact is hard to measure. Continue Reading Suing on Behalf of People You’re Suing Can Sink a Derivative Lawsuit — Especially If You Have a Litigious Nature

No U TurnArticle 11 of the Business Corporation Law governs dissolution of closely held New York business corporations. Article 11 has existed, more or less in its current form, for decades. Some of its provisions have been heavily litigated, including Sections 1104 and 1104-a governing judicial dissolution for deadlock and oppression, and Section 1118 governing buyout of a minority’s interest in an oppression proceeding. Other provisions have received surprisingly little attention.

In Morizio v Roeder, 2017 NY Slip Op 50248(U) [Sup Ct Albany County Feb. 17, 2017], Albany County Commercial Division Justice Richard M. Platkin addressed one of these latter, relatively-overlooked sections.

Section 1116 of the Business Corporation Law governs the circumstances in which a party who sues for dissolution may later change his or her mind and withdraw the claim for dissolution. The key language of the statute provides that a petitioner who wishes to withdraw his or her claim must “establish” to the court “that the cause for dissolution did not exist or no longer exists.”

What does that mean? Only a few courts have considered the issue, including a decision last year by Justice Timothy Driscoll in the Cardino case. As it turns out, a leading case to consider the legal standard to withdraw a dissolution claim was an earlier decision in the Morizio litigation. Continue Reading Withdraw a Dissolution Claim? Not So Fast

USA

It’s true that the statutory and common-law rules at play in business divorce cases can vary widely from state to state. But it’s also true that court decisions in one state can influence courts in other states, and can provide business divorce lawyers with fresh ideas and novel arguments. I like to think of it as legal cross-pollination.

For many years, one of the nation’s leading authorities on business organization law, Professor Elizabeth Miller at Baylor Law School, has been collecting, curating, and publishing detailed synopses of cases from around the country involving LLCs and other unincorporated business entities, with a large complement of dissolution, breach of fiduciary duty, and other cases featuring disputes among business co-owners. It’s a terrific resource for keeping up with nationwide case law developments. Some of Professor Miller’s summaries can be found online, but the best way for lawyers to gain access to them on a regular basis is to join the LLCs, Partnerships and Unincorporated Entities Committee of the ABA’s Business Law Section. That’s the same committee that sponsors the incomparable LLC Institute every year.

Professor Miller’s most recent sampling of (non-Delaware) partnership and LLC cases was presented at a session of the 2017 Spring Meeting of the Business Law Section in New Orleans. I’ve selected from it and further distilled in the following summaries a quintet of business divorce cases from a quintet of states other than New York. Continue Reading Business Divorce Nation: Five States, Five Cases

jurisdiction1I can count on one hand the number of federal court cases I’ve featured on this blog since I started it almost 10 years ago — and that’s no coincidence.

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, requiring either the presence of a claim arising under federal law — so-called federal question jurisdiction — or the opposing litigants are citizens of different states — so-called diversity jurisdiction.

Federal question jurisdiction rarely exists in business divorce cases involving the internal affairs of closely held business entities which are the peculiar province of state law. Federal courts are especially loathe to decide judicial dissolution cases, to the point where they routinely exercise their discretionary power to abstain from exercising jurisdiction even in dissolution cases where diversity exists (read here).

Inevitably there are some small number of diversity suits filed in federal court asserting state-law claims other than dissolution between business co-owners. Even in these cases, however, there is a potential trap for the unwary plaintiff if the subject business entity is a limited liability company, as nicely illustrated by a Manhattan federal judge’s decision last month in Sullivan v Ruvoldt, Opinion and Order, 16 Civ. 583 [SDNY Mar. 24, 2017]. Continue Reading Beware Diversity Trap in Federal Court Business Divorce Cases Involving LLCs