Photo of Joan Heminway

Joan Heminway

Subscribe to Joan Heminway's Posts

Professor Heminway brought nearly 15 years of corporate practice experience to the University of Tennessee College of Law when she joined the faculty in 2000. She practiced transactional business law (working in the areas of public offerings, private placements, mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and restructurings) in the Boston office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP from 1985 through 2000.

She has served as an expert witness and consultant on business entity and finance and federal and state securities law matters and is a frequent academic and continuing legal education presenter on business law issues. Professor Heminway also has represented pro bono clients on political asylum applications, landlord/tenant appeals, social security/disability cases, and not-for-profit incorporations and related business law issues. Read More

To start the New Year, I found a few thoughtful quotes to help me get in a good state of mind. I thought I’d share. Wishing you health, love, and success for 2019. 

“A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” – Henry Ford

“It is difficult, but not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Don’t bargain yourself down before you get to the table.” – Carol Frohlinger

“Goals are dreams with deadlines.” – Diana Scharf Hunt

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Stephen A. Brennan

Merry Christmas to you and yours, if you’re celebrating. And if you’re not, love to you, anyway. 

A few reminders on Christmas:  LLCs are corporations. And the business judgment rule gives directors a lot of latitude. Or at least it should. Even if Delaware courts say dumb stuff from time to time. 

Love to all. 

Sometimes I think courts are just trolling me (and the rest of us who care about basic entity concepts). The following quotes (and my commentary) are related to the newly issued case, Estes v. Hayden, No. 2017-CA-001882-MR, 2018 WL 6600225, at *1 (Ky. Ct. App. Dec. 14, 2018): 

“Estes and Hayden were business partners in several limited liability corporations, one of which was Success Management Team, LLC (hereinafter “Success”).” Maybe they had some corporations and LLCs, but the case only references were to LLCs (limited liability companies).

But wait, it gets worse:  “Hayden was a minority shareholder in, and the parties had no operating agreement regarding, Success.”  Recall that Success is an LLC. There should not be shareholders in an LLC. Members owning membership interests, yes. Shareholders, no. 

Apparently, Success was anything but, with Hayden and Estes being sued multiple times related to residential home construction where fraudulent conduct was alleged. Hayden sued Estes to dissolve and wind down all the parties’ business entities claiming a pattern of fraudulent conduct by Estes. Ultimately, the two entered a settlement agreement related to (among other things) back taxes, including an escrow account, which was (naturally) insufficient to cover the tax liability.  This…

Jack Welch, former GE CEO (1981 to 2001) was revered for his ability to maximize shareholder value.  Yet in 2009, he explained that shareholder value was

“the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy… your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products. Managers and investors should not set share price increases as their overarching goal… Short-term profits should be allied with an increase in the long-term value of a company.”

This runs contrary to how many people think about the role of the CEO and the board of directors.  I think it’s spot on, and it is a key reason the business judgment rule, and its role in preserving director primacy, is so critical.   

Last week, a Wall Street Journal article about Dick’s Sporting Goods made the rounds. The article reported: 

Ed Stack, the chairman and chief executive of Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., arrived at work the Monday after a gunman killed 17 people at a school in Parkland, Fla., nearly certain the outdoor retailer should limit sales of some guns.

. . . .

Dick’s Financial Chief Lee Belitsky asked, “So what’s the financial implication here?” according to Mr.

…

I just don’t get the fascination that courts have with calling LLCs (limited liability companies) limited liability corporations. Yes, at this point, I can no longer claim to be surprised, but I can remain appalled/disappointed/frustrated/etc. Today I happened upon a U.S. District Court case from Florida that made just such an error.  This one bugs me, in part, because the court’s reference immediately precedes a quotation of the related LLC statute, which repeatedly refers to the “limited liability company.”  It’s right there! 
 
That said, the court assesses the situation appropriately, and (I think) gets the law and outcome right.  The court explains: 
In this case, Commerce and Industry served the summons on Southern Construction by serving the wife of the manager of Southern Construction. Doc. No. 10. Because Southern Construction is a limited liability corporation, service is proper under Fla. Stat. § 48.062 . . . .
*2 (1) Process against a limited liability company, domestic or foreign, may be served on the registered agent designated by the limited liability company under chapter 605. A person attempting to serve process pursuant to this subsection may serve the process on any employee of the registered agent during the

…

On November 15, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) convened a Roundtable on the Proxy Process.  (See also here.)  I have not been following this as closely as co-blogger Ann Lipton has (see recent posts here and here), but friend-of-the-BLPB, Bernie Sharfman (Chairman of the Main Street Investors Coalition Advisory Council) has been active as a comment source.  Both contribute valuable ideas that I want to highlight here as the SEC continues to chew on the information it amassed in the roundtable process. 

Ann, as you may recall, has been focusing attention on the uncertain status of proxy advisors when it comes to liability for securities fraud.  In her most recent post, she observes that

There’s a real ambiguity about where, if it all, proxy advisors fit within the existing regulatory framework, and while I am not convinced there is a specific problem with how they operate or even necessarily a need for regulation, I think it can only be for the good if the SEC were to at least clarify the law, if for no other reason than that these entities play an important role in the securities ecosystem, and if we expect market…

Last week I posted Can LLC Members Be Employees? It Depends (Because of Course It Does), where I concluded that “as far as I am concerned, LLC members can also be LLCs employees, even though the general answer is that they are not. ” I thought I would follow up today with an example of an LLC member who is also an employee.  

I am not teaching Business Associations until next semester, but it galls me a little that I did not note this case last week, as it is a case that I teach as part of the section on fiduciary duties in Delaware.  

The case is Fisk Ventures, LLC v. Segal and the relevant facts excerpted from the case are as follows: 
Genitrix, LLC, is a Delaware limited liability company formed to develop and market biomedical technology. Dr. Segal founded the Company in 1996 following his postdoctoral fellowship at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Originally formed as a Maryland limited liability company, Genitrix was moved in 1997 to Delaware at the behest of Dr. H. Fisk Johnson, who invested heavily. 
Equity in Genitrix is divided into three classes of membership. In exchange for

…

Tom Rutledge posts the following over at the Kentucky Business Entity Law Blog:

LLC Members Are Not the LLC’s Employees

There is now pending before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals of a suit that may turn on whether the relevant question, namely whether an LLC member is an employee of the LLC, has already been determined by a state court. In that underlying judgment, the Circuit Court of Cole County, Missouri, issued a judgment dated October 9 18, 2017 in the case Joseph S. Vaughn Kaenel v. Warren, Case No.: 15 AC-CC 00472. That judgment provided in part:

As an equity partner of Armstrong Teasdale, LLP, [Kaenel] is not a covered employee protected by the Missouri Human Rights Act.

I am curious as to which case this is that is pending.  Tom knows his stuff and knows (and respects) the differences between entities, so I assume there is more to than appears here.  

For example, the fact that a state court determined that an LLP equity partner is not an employee does not inherently answer the question of whether an LLC member is an employee. It could, but it does not have to do so.  

In addition…

Back in May, I noted my dislike of the LLC diversity jurisdiction rule, which determines an LLC’s citizenship “by the citizenship of each of its members” I noted, 

I still hate this rule for diversity jurisdiction of LLCs.  I know I am not the first to have issues with this rule. 

I get the idea that diversity jurisdiction was extended to LLCs in the same way that it was for partnerships, but in today’s world, it’s dumb. Under traditional general partnership law, partners were all fully liable for the partnership, so it makes sense to have all partners be used to determine diversity jurisdiction.  But where any partner has limited liabilty, like members do for LLCs, it seems to me the entity should be the only consideration in determing citizenship for jurisdiction purposes. It works for corporations, even where a shareholder is also a manger (or CEO), so why not have the same for LLCs.  If there are individuals whose control of the entity is an issue, treat and LLC just like a corporation. Name individuals, too, if you think there is direct liability, just as you would with a corporation. For a corporation, if there is a shareholder, director, or

…

With just a few hours left to vote, I am taking this opportunity to ask you, if you have not already, to vote.  Please. It is our opportunity to be heard.

So often people complain about money in politics, and I agree that raises concerns. But we always have the power to choose. We, the voters, always have the final say. We can impose term limits any time we want, by voting people out.  If it is really a concern for us, we can overcome money in politics by choosing those who reject corporate interests. Either way, it is up to us. So, if you haven’t already, please, please vote. 

And if you already voted, thank you.  Good work.