The recent Tennessee Court of Appeals decision in Mulloy v. Mulloy has me thinking.  Here is the case synopsis:

Two brothers formed a limited liability company to own and lease a commercial property. When the tenant sought to expand, both brothers sought to find a suitable space for the tenant to lease. The younger of the two brothers found a property that would ideally suit the tenant’s needs, a fact that was communicated to his brother. The older brother purchased the property through a newly created limited liability company without his younger sibling’s involvement. The older brother’s new limited liability company then leased the new property to the tenant. The younger brother brought a derivative suit against his brother and the newly formed limited liability company, claiming usurpation of a corporate opportunity belonging to the limited liability company that the brothers had formed together and tortious interference with business relationships. The younger brother also claimed unjust enrichment. Following a trial, the chancery court found in favor of the older brother and his newly formed limited liability company and dismissed the complaint. After our review of the record, we affirm.

The facts are quite a bit more complex than that.  But you get the idea.

First, let me make Josh Fershee’s point for him: limited liability company (LLC) members cannot usurp “corporate” opportunities, since they are not corporations.  Indeed, the court in Mulloy repeatedly refers to the doctrine in that way and cites to corporate law precedent we all know and love.  This despite an accurate citation to Tennessee’s statutory standard for the usurpation of LLC opportunities: requiring members to hold in trust for the LLC “any property, profit or benefit derived by the member in the conduct . . . of the LLC’s business, or derived from a use by the member of the LLC’s property, including the appropriation of any opportunity of the LLC.”  Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-249-403(b)(1).

But the big surprise for me was “we affirm.”  Why?  I just kept thinking of Meinhard v. Salmon.  Apart from he fact that this case involves a Tennessee LLC and two brothers, the material facts are substantially similar.  Yet, the result is different.  The Mulloy court reasons that the property acquisition opportunity at issue was not the LLC’s, but rather the older brother’s (even though the brothers’ jointly owned LLC existed to lease property to a specific tenant–the same tenant to which the older brother rents the new property–property that the younger brother originally identified).  The court references facts that do help the older brother here.  But something just smells wrong about this.  The lack of candor in this situation is particularly disturbing.

So, that set me to wondering if there was a way to get that “punctilio of an honor, the most sensitive” back into the judicial sightline.  Immediately, I thought of Anderson v. Wilder–a 2003 Tennessee Court of Appeals case in which the court applies the close corporation shareholder fiduciary duties under Massachusetts corporate law to members in a Tennessee LLC.  However, it then occurred to me that Anderson was decided under Tennessee’s “old” LLC Act; but the LLC in Mulloy opted into Tennessee’s modernized, “new” LLC Act, which became effective on January 1, 2006.  The new LLC Act is modeled in part on the Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act and provides as follows, in pertinent part (in Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-249-403(a) and (b) (emphasis in italics added)):

• “The only fiduciary duties a member owes to a member-managed LLC and the LLC’s other members and holders are the duty of loyalty and the duty of care . . . .”
• “A member’s duty of loyalty to a member-managed LLC and the LLC’s other members and holders of financial rights is limited to the following: (1) To account to the LLC and to hold as trustee for it any . . . benefit derived by the member in the conduct . . . of the LLC’s business, or derived from a use by the member of the LLC’s property, including the appropriation of any opportunity of the LLC . . . .”

These statutory provisions would appear to foreclose an argument that members of an LLC organized under the new LLC Act have a fiduciary duty of utmost good faith and loyalty to each other under Anderson (or otherwise at common law).  Much as I hate to admit it, that’s the way a court should, and likely would, see this.

What do you think?  Is my concern about the holding in the appellate court opinion in Mulloy warranted?  Or do we treat the Mulloy brothers like “big boys” and agree with the appellate and trial courts?  Your views are welcomed.  I am looking for some creative arguments here . . . .