Opinion ID: 2099317
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dissolution and Wind Up of Bay View, LLC

Text: To contest both the dissolution and the winding up of Bay View, [7] Della Ratta focuses on the General Assembly's authorization of the circuit court of the county in which the principal office of the limited liability company is located both to decree the dissolution of an LLC (under CA Section 4A-903) and to wind up the affairs of the LLC (under CA Section 4A-904(b)). [8] Della Ratta claims that the statute is unambiguous and requires any adjudication of dissolution to be in the county described. The CSA disagreed, reasoning that the statute was ambiguous because it was unclear as to whether the language restricted jurisdiction to a specific county or simply indicated a non-binding preference for a particular county. We disagree with the CSA, however, because, in our view, such a holding contravenes the statutory interpretation canon that a court should read a statute as a whole to ensure that no word, clause, sentence or phrase is rendered surplusage, superfluous, meaningless or nugatory. Addison v. Lochearn Nursing Home, LLC, 411 Md. 251, 275, 983 A.2d 138, 153 (2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Reading the language as a mere preference for a particular county would render it surplusage because, pursuant to the carries on a regular business clause in the Maryland's general venue statute, [9] venue would exist in the county where the principal office is located regardless of the existence of the principal office provision. Furthermore, such a reading would render the provision nugatory because a plaintiff could ignore the preference and bring a dissolution action in any county permitted by the general venue statute. See Maryland Code (1974, 2006 Repl. Vol.), § 6-201 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article. Accordingly, because this Court should not read any portion of the statute as ineffectual, we do not interpret Section 4A-903 as signaling simply a legislative preference. Thus, we conclude that the statute confers exclusive subject matter jurisdiction for ordering dissolution of an LLC on the county where the principal office of the LLC is located. Even if this Court were to agree with the CSA that Section 4A-903 is ambiguous, we would still interpret the statute as we did above because of its legislative and statutory history. Again, we disagree with the CSA on this point. The CSA explored the legislative history of the Maryland Limited Liability Company Act (MLLCA) (CA Title 4A), the Maryland Uniform Partnership Act (MUPA) (CA Title 9), the Maryland Revised Uniform Partnership Act (MRUPA) (CA Title 9A), and the Maryland Revised Uniform Limited Partnership Act (MRULPA) (CA Title 10). According to a special Joint Committee of the Sections of Taxation and Business Law of the Maryland State Bar Association (the Committee), which drafted the legislative bill that became the MLLCA, CA Section 4A-903 was derived from MRULPA's Section 10-802, and it was intended that all circumstances which justify judicial dissolution under [MRULPA] will justify judicial dissolution of a limited liability company. Draft of Third Report of the Special Joint Committee on the Maryland Limited Liability Company Act 84 (1992). Both CA Sections 4A-903 and 10-802 [10] contain the principal office provision, and the CSA relied on the Committee's statement in holding that the MLLCA dissolution section contained the provision simply because it was in the MRULPA. See Della Ratta, 183 Md.App. at 360, 961 A.2d at 638-39. The comment to CA Section 10-802 (found in Chapter 801 of the Acts of 1981) explains that the Section is derived from CA Section 9-603(a)(4) of MUPA and is not intended to modify existing law. 1981 Md. Laws 3047. Section 9-603(a)(4) does not contain the principal office provision. [11] Therefore, the CSA reasoned, the language in Section 4A-903 does not limit subject matter jurisdiction because its statutory genesis did not restrict which courts could order the dissolution of a partnership. We agree with Della Ratta's challenge to the CSA's reliance on the Committee's stated intention not to modify the law as it existed before the adoption of CA Section 10-802. Relying on the Third Report of the Special Joint Committee on the Maryland Limited Liability Company Act (June 1, 1992), Della Ratta asserts that the intent was only to borrow the `circumstances which justify judicial dissolution' from the [MRULPA,] not the law on subject matter jurisdiction. We believe this is the best reading of the comment. The General Assembly's insertion of language restricting the court that may order dissolution in the MLLCA and the MRULPA, while omitting the same language in MRUPA's dissolution statute, indicates that Maryland's legislative body intended to impose an additional limitation. There is no question that the General Assembly considered such language when it promulgated the MRUPA because the clause is present in the MRUPA's winding up statute. Thus, we conclude that the deviation is intentional and a more substantive restriction on subject matter jurisdiction. Ultimately, the plain language of CA Section 4A-903 as well as a logical examination of legislative and statutory history persuades us that the MLLCA accords subject matter jurisdiction exclusively in the circuit court of the county in which the principal office of the LLC is located. [12] We also read the same restriction in the plain language of CA Sections 4A-904(b) and 9A-803.