The Business Divorce Law Report
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A limited liability company member withdraws by voluntary dissociation, which occurs when the company has notice of his ‘express will” to withdraw. Voluntary dissociation terminates management rights, but not economic rights.
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A court may refuse relief on a claim when the plaintiff has acted with unclean hands with regard to the subject matter of the action. The doctrine applies to an evil practice or wrong conduct in the particular matter for which the court has been asked to provide a remedy.
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A member in a manager-managed limited liability company owes no statutory duty of loyalty to the company, but will owe a statutory duty of loyalty under the common law if he or she is also an employee.
A sales representative who held a non-equity percentage interest in a New Jersey limited liability company effectively withdrew as a member of the company by leaving his “share certificates’ with the company’s lawyer, a trial and appellate court have agreed.
This withdrawal, known under New Jersey’s version of the Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act (RULLCA) as a voluntary dissociation occurred even though the circumstances surrounding that act – leaving a certificate with a lawyer – was disputed. Dissociation in limited liability and partnership law is an act by which an individual owner’s association with the business is severed, voluntarily or involuntarily. It may apply in either a resignation or an expulsion.
The Appellate Division case at issue, Decandia v. Anthony T. Rinaldi, LLC (see opinion here) involved a dispute between a sales representative who received a commission styled as a membership interest in a construction company, but which was actually a non-equity profit interest in his own originations. The sole equity owner of the firm, Rinaldi, retained all of the management rights in the business. Continue reading
and threatens to draw off the time and attention of key managers.