{"id":514,"date":"2013-09-17T14:51:29","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T14:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/breach-of-fiduciary-duty\/"},"modified":"2013-09-17T14:51:29","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T14:51:29","slug":"breach-of-fiduciary-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/breach-of-fiduciary-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"Breach of Fiduciary Duty in an LLC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">In lawsuits between business owners, a common allegation is &#8220;breach of fiduciary duty&#8221;.\u00a0 But, what exactly does breach of fiduciary duty mean?\u00a0 And, when does this claim arise?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Georgia law provides guidance on this issue. A Limited Liability Company \u00a0\u201c member or manager shall act in a manner he or she believes in good faith to be in the best interest of the limited liability company and with the care any ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under certain circumstances.\u201d Similar Georgia laws govern the relationships between shareholders in a corporation and partners in a partnership.\u00a0 Where a breach of fiduciary duty can be established, and if it can be shown that damages actually flowed from the breach, a plaintiff-member may succeed on this claim.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">In a 2011 Court of Appeals\u2019 decision, <em>Moses v. Pennebaker<\/em>, one member of an LLC, Moses, petitioned for dissolution of the LLC and brought other claims against a member, Pennebaker.\u00a0 In turn, Pennebaker brought counterclaims, including one for breach of fiduciary duty. \u00a0Pennebaker alleged that Moses unilaterally took control of the LLC and managed it without authority and then set up a competing company, which Moses actually operated out of the LLC&#8217;s office, using the same equipment and employees.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The court awarded Pennebaker only nominal damages on the breach of fiduciary duty claim.\u00a0 However, the same conduct that authorized the damages for Moses&#8217; breach of fiduciary duty also led the court to award Pennebaker his attorneys&#8217; fees and punitive damages against Moses.\u00a0 \u00a0This case illustrates that, even if the actual damages flowing from a business partner&#8217;s breach of fiduciary duty may be difficult to prove, being able to establish a claim of breach of fiduciary duty is crucial because it may still lead to a significant award of damages. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In lawsuits between business owners, a common allegation is &#8220;breach of fiduciary duty&#8221;.\u00a0 But, what exactly does breach of fiduciary duty mean?\u00a0 And, when does this claim arise?\u00a0 Georgia law provides guidance on this issue. A Limited Liability Company \u00a0\u201c member or manager shall act in a manner he or she believes in good faith [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mo_disable_npp":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[27,47,23,43],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Breach of Fiduciary Duty in an LLC - Berman Fink Van Horn P.C.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/breach-of-fiduciary-duty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Breach of Fiduciary Duty in an LLC - Berman Fink Van Horn P.C.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In lawsuits between business owners, a common allegation is &#8220;breach of fiduciary duty&#8221;.\u00a0 But, what exactly does breach of fiduciary duty mean?\u00a0 And, when does this claim arise?\u00a0 Georgia law provides guidance on this issue. 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