Levitt V. Gilligan Village LLC

Material Facts Janet Levitt and Mark Levitt filed a lawsuit against Gilligan Village LLC, Lauren Bivins, Milton Burnside, Sondra Burnside, and Patricia Goldstein. Janet Levitt, Mark Levitt, Lauren Bivins, Milton Burnside, Sondra Burnside and Patricia Goldstein are members of Gilligan Village and are related by blood, marriage, or otherwise. Under the LLC operating agreement, Mark Levitt is the General Manger of Gilligan Village and replaced the original general manager Edward Bivins, who has passed away. As General Manger, Levitt attempted to sell a parcel of real estate and that is Gilligan’s asset. Due to this attempt, Lauren Bivins, Sondra Burnside, and Patricia Goldstein removed Levitt as General Manager and named Lauren Bivins as
Pochter were an LLC member sued the other member for breaching their operating agreement. It involved the selling of a piece of land, not informing the managing members of the LLC, and sending an email to these members after agreeing to the deal. Because the member who sold the land was a lawyer, the court found his advancement of his own self-interest with disregard to that of a fellow non-manager member was unacceptable. In our situation, Levitt is making a claim the other members breached their operating agreement by removing him as manager and these facts are different from Moede v. Pochter. The similarity between the two cases is the selling, or in our case not selling, land that is in the best interest of one member, but not of all the members. Levitt wanted to sell the parcel without consulting his fellow members and at the same time, Bivins did not want the parcel to be sold because she would lose management fees. However, again there are some facts missing to show each definitively acted in their own self-interest and, therefore, be guilty of
Guilford Village Walk, LLC. It has many similarities to the case between Levitt and Gilligan Village. The court concluded Levy and Guilford Village have a fiduciary relationship to each other and member should not participate in self-dealing. They further determined the rationale of not selling the property due to the current economy was flawed and their actions relate to self-dealing to benefit one member of the LLC. Proof existed that the member who would benefit from self-dealing reached out to Levy to avoid financial ruin. When she did not receive the answer she desired, they removed Levy as manager and the other members named the concerned member as a replacement. The court felt there was an issue of material fact remaining to be resolved relating to the defendants' motive for removing Levy and preventing the sale of the property. We can apply these principles directly applied to our case; it appears Bivins is self-dealing and had Levitt removed because she would lose management fees. This would be a breach of fiduciary duty and duty of care. Again, facts are missing in our cases and that makes it hard to know for sure this was the case