Court Opinion

ID: 9745752
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:30:40.682981+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:32.411662
License: Public Domain

BLEASE, Acting P. J., Concurring.
I concur in the judgment and opinion dismissing the appeal. I add these remarks because the governing statute, Corporations Code section 17351 (section 17351), does not precisely fit the facts of this case.* 1
The relevant facts are these: the plaintiff, Richard Dickson, filed an action to dissolve a limited liability company. The defendant, Roger Rehmke, to avoid dissolution of the company, invoked the provisions of section 17351, to establish and buy out plaintiff’s membership interest. Three appraisers were *479appointed, who could not agree on the value of Dickson’s interest.2 The trial court then determined the value and entered it in an “Order after Hearing on Valuation,” dated May 9, 2006. Defendant tendered the amount specified in the order and a “judgment” was entered, incorporating the findings of fact of the order and directing the transfer of Dickson’s membership interests to Rehmke. A notice of entry of judgment was served on Dickson on June 27, 2006. The notice of appeal “from the judgment” was filed on August 24, 2006.3
The timeliness of the appeal turns on whether service of the judgment or the decree commences the 60-day period of the statute of limitations. I agree that it is the decree.
Subdivision (b)(3) of section 17351 provides that “[a]ny member aggrieved by the action of the court may appeal therefrom.” The question is whether “action of the court” refers to the decree or the judgment.
The sentence immediately preceding “action of the court” refers to a judgment, but only to a judgment dissolving the limited liability company if “the purchasing parties do not make payment . . . .” (§ 17351, subd. (b)(3).) That is not the judgment entered in this case; it ordered the transfer of Dickson’s membership interests to Rehmke. The only other “action of the court” referred to in subdivision (b)(3) is “a decree that shall provide in the alternative for winding up and dissolution of the limited liability company unless payment is made for the membership interests within the time specified by the decree.” That necessarily is the action to which subdivision (b)(3) must refer. The trial court’s “Order after Hearing on Valuation” does not precisely fit that description since, although it provides for payment, it is not phrased in the alternative. But it is the only order that comes close to the decree described in the statute.
*480Accordingly, it is the decree (order after valuation) that is subject to an appeal. The appeal in this case is without the period of limitations that commenced with the order and must be dismissed.

 Section 17351, subdivision (b)(3), provides, in pertinent part, when the value of a limited liability company is in dispute, for the appointment of three disinterested appraisers for the purpose of “ascertaining [the] value” of the disputed interest. “The award of the appraisers or a majority of them, when confirmed by the court, shall be final and conclusive upon all parties. The court shall enter a decree that shall provide in the alternative for winding up and dissolution of the limited liability company unless payment is made for the membership interests within the time specified by the decree. If the purchasing parties do not make payment for the membership interests within the time specified, judgment shall be entered against them and the surety or sureties .... Any member aggrieved by the action of the court may appeal therefrom.”
Section 17351, subdivision (b)(4) provides: “If the purchasing parties desire to prevent the winding up and dissolution of the limited liability company, they shall pay to the moving parties the value of their membership interests ascertained and decreed within the time specified pursuant to this section, or, in the case of an appeal, as fixed on appeal. On receiving that payment or the tender thereof, the moving parties shall transfer their membership interests to the purchasing parties.”

 There was no award by a “majority” of the three appraisers, as required by section 17351, subdivision (b)(3), since the appraisals were $0, $156,000, and $286,000. Consequently there was no appraisers’ award to confirm by decree and the court did not do so. Rather, the court was asked by Rehmke to determine the value in the sum of $147,333.33, which it did, based on the “mean” value of the three different appraisals. The court further split the ownership 50/50 between plaintiff and defendant, notwithstanding that the appraisers had wildly varying estimates of the parties’ percentage interests.

 It is apparently Dickson’s position that the incorporation of the findings of fact of the order after valuation into the judgment subjects them to challenge on appeal. However, for reasons stated above, the judgment is not the “action of the court” to which the appeal provisions of section 17351, subdivision (b)(3), refer.