Pappas v. Tzolis

87 A.D.3d 889, 932 N.Y.2d 439
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedSeptember 15, 2011
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 87 A.D.3d 889 (Pappas v. Tzolis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pappas v. Tzolis, 87 A.D.3d 889, 932 N.Y.2d 439 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

Plaintiffs and defendant Steve Tzolis formed defendant Vrahos LLC for the specific purpose of entering into a long-term lease on a building in Manhattan. Vrahos was created as a Delaware limited liability company, although the operating agreement expressly provided that the agreement was governed by New York law. The lease, which commenced in January 2006, required the payment of a security deposit of $1,192,500 and personal guarantees from Tzolis and plaintiff Steve Pappas. The operating agreement specified that Tzolis would advance the security deposit. It further provided that, as consideration for his furnishing of the security deposit, Tzolis would have the right to enter into a sublease of the property with Vrahos. This was conditioned on his paying additional monies to Vrahos above the rental payments that Vrahos was required to pay directly to the landlord.

As concerns this appeal, the operating agreement also contained the following relevant provision: “Any Member may [890]*890engage in business ventures and investments of any nature whatsoever, whether or not in competition with the LLC, without obligation of any kind to the LLC or to the other Members.”

Tzolis exercised his right to sublease the building. However, he failed to make the additional payments to Vrahos that were required by the operating agreement. In September 2006, a few months after the subtenancy began, Tzolis suggested to plaintiffs that they assign their interests in Vrahos to him. He claimed that he did not want to make the additional rent payments and would rather take over the prime lease. Plaintiffs agreéd, and negotiated buyouts of $1,000,000 for Pappas and $500,000 for plaintiff Constantine Ifantopoulos. The assignment agreements between plaintiffs and Tzolis provided that the assignment would become effective on the later of the date on which the landlord released Pappas from his personal guarantee and the date on which Pappas received the assignment fee. If either of those events had not taken place by February 5, 2007, the assignment would be rendered null and void. At the same time as they executed their assignment agreement, plaintiffs and Tzolis signed a handwritten “certificate,” which provided, in pertinent part, that “each of the undersigned Sellers, in connection with their respective assignments to Steve Tzolis of their membership interests in Vrahos LLC, has performed their own due diligence in connection with such assignments. Each of the undersigned Sellers has engaged its own legal counsel, and is not relying on any representation by Steve Tzolis or any of his agents or representatives, except as set forth in the assignments & other documents delivered to the undersigned Sellers today. Further, each of the undersigned Sellers agrees that Steve Tzolis has no fiduciary duty to the undersigned Sellers in connection with such assignments.”

The assignments to Tzolis became effective shortly after February 20, 2007, the date on which Pappas was released from his personal guarantee. Six months later, Vrahos, now wholly owned by Tzolis, assigned its lease to nonparty Charlton Soho LLC for $17.5 million. Pappas claims that he later discovered that, unbeknownst to plaintiffs at the time, Tzolis had begun negotiating the assignment of the lease to nonparty Extell Development Company, Charlton’s owner, months before plaintiffs assigned their interests in Vrahos to Tzolis.

The complaint asserts nine causes of action against Tzolis. The first is that, in failing to disclose to them that he and Extell were negotiating a lucrative sale of Vrahos’s leasehold interest, and then engineering the buyout of their interests, Tzolis [891]*891breached a fiduciary duty that he owed to plaintiffs. The second claim is for misappropriation of a business opportunity of Vrahos. The third is for breach of contract and of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, although it does not identify the contract that Tzolis is alleged to have breached. The fourth cause of action is for conversion, the fifth for unjust enrichment, and the sixth for rescission and a declaratory judgment that not only was plaintiffs’ assignment of their interests in Vrahos to Tzolis rendered null and void by Trolis’s actions, but that, in addition, Tzolis forfeited his own interest in the entity. Plaintiffs’ seventh and eighth causes of action seek, respectively, an equitable accounting and the imposition of a constructive trust. The ninth cause of action asserts that Tzolis tortiously caused Vrahos to interfere with plaintiffs’ interests. The tenth cause of action sounds in fraud and misrepresentation and is based on Tzolis’s failure to advise plaintiffs, before Tzolis purchased their interests in Vrahos, of the ongoing negotiations with Extell. Finally, the eleventh cause of action was brought derivatively on behalf of Vrahos and asserts that Tzolis breached his fiduciary duty to the entity.

Tzolis moved to dismiss the complaint in its entirety, pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (1) and (7). He argued that he and plaintiffs never intended to enter into a fiduciary relationship and that he thus had no duty to disclose his negotiations with Extell. He further asserted that Delaware law governed Vrahos’s internal affairs, and that it permitted the elimination of fiduciary duties among members, which he contended was achieved by paragraph 11 of the operating agreement. Based on this theory, Tzolis argued that all of his dealings with Extell were immune from claims for breach of fiduciary duty. He further argued that because plaintiffs executed the certificate and willingly entered into the assignment agreement, none of the causes of action stated a claim against him. Plaintiffs countered that paragraph 11 could not be construed in such a way as to permit Tzolis’s actions, and that their assignment of their interests in Vrahos could not be considered willing because Tzolis had concealed material information from them such as his negotiations with Extell.

The motion court granted the motion. It found that under both Delaware law and New York law, plaintiffs had no cause of action. The court found that paragraph 11 of the operating agreement “eliminates the fiduciary relationship that would, otherwise, be owed by the members to each other and to the LLC.” The court noted that, contrary to plaintiffs’ contention, paragraph 11 could not be reasonably construed as limiting the [892]*892types of business opportunities a member of Vrahos could enter into for his exclusive benefit to those that did not exploit the assets of Vrahos itself. The court also stated that, to the extent paragraph 11 of the operating agreement eliminated certain fiduciary duties amongst the members, it was not unlawful or against public policy. The court relied on this reasoning, and the fact that plaintiffs failed to identify any contractual provision that Tzolis violated, in finding that plaintiffs’ claims for breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation and breach of contract failed to state a cause of action.

As to their claims for conversion and unjust enrichment, the court noted plaintiffs’ willing sale of their interests in Vrahos. As to the fraud cause of action, the court stated that plaintiffs could prevail only if, under the “special facts” doctrine, they established that Tzolis had such superior knowledge of the relevant facts that it was inherently unfair for him not to disclose them. The court found that plaintiffs failed to sufficiently allege that, through the use of ordinary diligence, they could not have discovered that Tzolis had been negotiating to achieve a significant profit through the assignment of the lease to Extell.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
87 A.D.3d 889, 932 N.Y.2d 439, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pappas-v-tzolis-nyappdiv-2011.