The Appellate Division sent a case back to the trial judge to figure out exactly what the owners of an LLC meant in a settlement agreement when it referred to when it linked a contingent payment to a “distribution.”
The case, which involves a relatively modest amount in dispute, is a cautionary tale arising from the use of a statutorily defined term in a context in which it just wasn’t clear what the parties were referring to. One of the parties pointed to the dictionary and the other the text of the statute.