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Unfinished Business Claims
Last month, in Part One of this article, we explained that two judges sitting in the District Court in the Northern District of California had issued decisions with respect to unfinished business claims. Judge Charles R. Breyer's decision came in the Heller Ehrman bankruptcy case (Heller) and Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong's decision came in the Howrey bankruptcy case (Howrey). We also reviewed the New York Court of Appeals decisions in Thelen and Coudert. The rulings on all these cases (one of which was updated after we went to press, discussed below) favored the law firm defendants. We continue this discussion herein.
The Equities
Regarding the decision in Heller Ehrman LLP v. Davis Wright, Tremaine, LLP (In re Heller Ehrman LLP ) (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California June 11, 2014, appeal filed July 10, 2014), the equities also favored the law firm defendants. The trustee argued that the former Heller partners had a fiduciary duty to account to Heller's estate for profits their new firms earned from work on former Heller matters. However, the fiduciary duty to account is limited to partnership property. Thus, if the profits the defendants earned are not derived from Heller partnership property, there is no duty to account.
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