Jane Goldman Appeals Delaware Trial Decision

Jane Goldman wants to revisit the explosive case last summer over the Goldman real estate empire — the latest escalation in the family feud with her nephew and sister.

Goldman on Monday filed a notice that she intends to appeal a Delaware court’s decision from July that followed a trial over the power struggle between Jane and her nephew Steven Gurney-Goldman and sister Amy Goldman Fowler over a key LLC in the family business.

The judge ruled on several points in the case, including that Jane does not unilaterally control a critical holding company, SG Windsor, but instead shares management with her family members.

The issue at the center of the appeal, however, appears to focus on Steven’s management of SG Windsor as executor of his late father’s estate. Judge J. Travis Laster ruled that Steven can exercise certain management rights as they pertain to administering his father’s estate, based on a rather technical reading of a relevant Delaware state statute.

The ruling was based on Laster’s interpretation of an ambiguous line in the state’s LLC law:

“If a member who is an individual dies or a court of competent jurisdiction adjudges the member to be incompetent to manage the member’s person or property, the member’s personal representative may exercise all of the member’s rights for the purpose of settling the member’s estate or administering the member’s property, including any power under a limited liability company agreement of an assignee to become a member.”

Jane and her attorneys read the sentence narrowly, understanding it to mean that if a member dies, the member’s personal representative may exercise the rights for settling an estate.

Laster compared it to reading the sentence, “Men and women are eligible to become members of fraternities and sororities” to mean men are eligible to join fraternities and women, sororities.

But the judge interpreted it broadly, the way Steven and Amy did, which gave Steven more rights to exercise at SG Windsor. Those rights had become a sticking point as Jane and Steven tussled over information requests.

Steven’s attorney, Ryan Rakower from Quinn Emanuel, said he’s confident the court will affirm its previous decision.

“We are not surprised that, after she lost the trial before the Delaware Court of Chancery, Jane Goldman has decided to appeal Vice Chancellor Laster’s well-reasoned decision, which recognizes that she is not the Manager of SG Windsor and has no authority to unilaterally control the company,” he said.

A spokesperson for Jane said that beyond the targeted scope of the appeal, the court’s ruling stands finding that Steven is not a manger of SG Windsor.

“At the conclusion of trial, the Delaware court soundly rejected Amy and Steven’s claims that Steven became a member of the company after his father’s passing,” the spokesperson said. “The Delaware court also confirmed, on the facts and evidence, that Jane, together with her late brother Allan and longtime co-manager Louisa Little, has managed the Goldman family real estate empire for the benefit of the entire Goldman family for more than 35 years since her father Sol’s death — and that everyone knew that Jane, Allan and Louisa were managing the business. Jane’s management was not in any way unauthorized.”

The Delaware matter is a separate case from a lawsuit ongoing in New York centered around an appraisal of the Goldman family properties. That case is on track to head to trial next year or the following one.