Right? 

I understand that I may be one of the few people who seems to actually care about such a thing, but it seems to me courts really should be careful about their descriptions of limited liability entities.  I have written about this before (here, here, and here), but it continues to frustrate me.  

One of the things that got me thinking about this again (but let's be honest, it seems I am always thinking about this) is a post over at The Conglomerate.  There, Christine Hurt (who, to be clear, is a lot smarter and more knowledgeable than I) discusses the Illinois governor's interest in generating more jobs by shifting to "the $39 limited liability company."  In her post, she makes a couple references to incorporation in the context of LLC formation.  But, in fairness, that's a blog post, and I can't claim that I have always been as precise as I should be in my blog writing, either.  

Courts, however, should be more careful.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, for example, loves to call limited liability companies "limited liability corporations" in their cases.  Take, for example, CarePartners, LLC v. Lashway, 545 F.3d 867 (9th Cir. 2008), the caption of which is:  "CAREPARTNERS LLC, limited liability corporation under the Laws of the State of Washington doing business as Alderwood Assisted Living . . . ."  That is wrong. Washington LLC law provides that an LLC is a limited liability company.  Even more significant, Washington LLC law provides specifically that  an LLC's name "[m]ust not contain any of the words or phrases:  . . . 'corporation,' 'incorporated,' or the abbreviations 'corp.,' 'ltd.," or 'inc.,'  . . . ." Wash. Stat. 25.15.010(d)  (2014).