LLC's Creditors Have Standing to Sue Members for Unlawful Distributions
The Colorado Court of Appeals held last month that creditors as a group have standing to sue members of an LLC who receive distributions knowing that the distributions were made when the LLC was insolvent. Colborne Corp. v. Weinstein, No. 09CA0724, 2010 Colo. App. LEXIS 58 (Colo. App. Jan. 21, 2010).
The Colorado LLC Act bars LLCs from making distributions to members if the LLC’s liabilities would exceed its assets after the distribution. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 7-80-606(1). The Act also provides that a member who receives a distribution in violation of the rule, with knowledge of the violation at the time of the distribution, is liable to the LLC to return the amount of the distribution. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 7-80-606(2).
The Act only speaks of the member’s liability to the LLC – it says nothing about rights of the LLC’s creditors. Can an LLC’s creditor sue a member directly for knowingly receiving an improper distribution under Section 606 of the Act? That was the question in Colborne.
The Court of Appeals pointed out that a similar provision in the Colorado Business Corporation Act (CBCA) had been interpreted to give creditors standing to directly sue a corporation’s directors. See Paratransit Risk Retention Group Ins. Co. v. Kamins, 160 P.3d 307 (Colo. App. 2007). The CBCA holds corporate directors liable to the corporation for authorizing distributions if the corporation would be insolvent after the distribution. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 7-108-403. The Paratransit court held that the corporate creditors had standing to sue the directors directly for authorizing improper distributions.
The Colborne court found the reasons for extending standing to creditors to be as applicable to LLCs as they were to corporations. The purpose of Section 606 is to protect the LLC’s creditors, said the court, and to not allow creditors to sue members directly would “substantially undercut the purpose of a statute enacted to protect creditors from self-dealing managers and members.” Colborne, 2010 Colo. App. LEXIS, at *9.
The Court of Appeals had previously held that managers of an insolvent LLC owe the LLC’s creditors a limited fiduciary duty to abstain from favoring their own interests over those of the creditors. Sheffield Servs. Co. v. Trowbridge, 211 P.3d 714 (Colo. App. 2009). The Colborne court applied the Sheffield rule and held that Colborne Corp.’s complaint alleged sufficient facts to state a claim, even though the complaint did not explicitly allege that the managers favored their interests over Colborne’s.
The court held in conclusion that creditors of an insolvent LLC (a) have standing as a group to sue members of the LLC for knowingly receiving unlawful distributions, under Section 7-80-606 of Colorado’s LLC Act, and (b) are owed a limited fiduciary duty by the LLC’s managers to abstain from favoring their own interests over those of the creditors.
Many state LLC statutes have provisions similar to Section 606(2) of the Colorado Act. E.g., Del. Code Ann. tit. 6, § 18-607; Wash. Rev. Code § 25.15.235. But neither Delaware nor Washington has case law interpreting whether an LLC creditor has standing to sue a member for knowingly receiving an unlawful distribution, i.e., when the LLC was insolvent.
Colborne is interesting because the court found a remedy for LLC creditors based on the statute, even though the language of the statute only obligates the members to return unlawful distributions to the LLC. Section 606 says nothing about creating a cause of action for the LLC’s creditors. The court relied heavily on Section 606’s perceived policy of protecting creditors, and analogized to the similar result on the corporate side. Still, one might have thought that if the Colorado legislature wanted to allow creditors of an LLC to sue members directly for the return of distributions, it could have said so.
Idaho's First Case on LLC Fiduciary Duties
The law of fiduciary duties in LLCs is not well settled. For example, less than half of the states have reported opinions on fiduciary duties in LLCs. Cases of first impression on basic fiduciary duty issues in LLCs will be arising for a long time to come.
State courts, when first faced with a claim of breach of fiduciary duty by an LLC manager or member, normally look initially to the state’s LLC Act. Many state LLC Acts have provisions setting fiduciary standards. For example, Ohio’s LLC Act requires managers to act in good faith, in (or not opposed to) the best interests of the company, and with the care of an ordinarily prudent person.
Sometimes there is no help in the Act – some states have no provisions addressing whether members or managers of an LLC owe fiduciary duties to the company or the members. For example, the LLC Acts of Delaware, Washington and Indiana are silent on the issue.
The Idaho Supreme Court recently addressed member fiduciary duties for the first time, in Bushi v. Sage Health Care, PLLC (March 4, 2009). Applying Idaho’s pre-RULLCA LLC Act, the court found no prescribed fiduciary duties in the Act. (In 2008 Idaho enacted RULLCA into law, which does contain express fiduciary duty language, but it does not become effective until July 1, 2010.)
Looking further afield, the justices found that the majority of courts considering the issue have concluded that LLC members owe one another the fiduciary duties of trust and loyalty. In the cases referred to in the Idaho opinion, the courts analogized LLCs to partnerships. The court concluded that under Idaho’s LLC Act, managing members of an LLC owe each other fiduciary duties.
This is not a surprising result. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a state court finding that LLC members with managing authority, or nonmember managers, do not have fiduciary duties of good faith, loyalty, and care akin to those of partners in a partnership or directors in a corporation. But the Idaho case is a good example of a court looking first to its statute, and upon not finding an answer, looking to persuasive precedent and the reasoning used by other courts.
We can anticipate later, more difficult questions involving matters such as the scope of a member’s or manager’s fiduciary duties, the extent to which the members can agree by contract to limit or exclude each other’s fiduciary duties, and whether claims for breach of fiduciary duties can be brought by a member or only derivatively in the name of the LLC. But those are discussions for a later date.
