Three recent court decisions from three different states — New York, Pennsylvania, and Alabama — add to the rogue’s gallery of valuation cases stemming from poorly conceived and/or poorly implemented buy-sell agreements among shareholders or LLC members.

Each one, in its own way, teaches a valuable lesson for lawyers charged with drafting such agreements, and also highlights the wisdom of consulting with appraisal experts at the time of drafting.

New York: The Nimkoff Case

The Nimkoff case is an old friend of this blog, and I do mean old. I first wrote about the case in its infancy, in 2010 (read here). Eight years later, following discovery and a dozen or so motions, the case has yet to be tried.

Nimkoff is a fight over the value of a 3.6% membership interest in a single-asset realty holding LLC owned by a group of medical doctors. The plaintiff is the wife-executrix of one of the doctors, whose death in 2004 triggered the LLC’s obligation to purchase the deceased member’s interest for a “Stated Value” in accordance with the operating agreement which also required that the Stated Value be updated annually. Continue Reading Lessons From a Trio of Dysfunctional Buy-Sell Agreements