Investor Disputes & Business Torts in Montana

Real-estate and construction ventures run on other people's money. When the people controlling that money break their obligations — through breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, or plain mismanagement — the investors who funded the project are the ones holding the loss. Meyer | Shumrick represents individuals and businesses in high-stakes disputes involving investment partnerships, closely held companies, and financial misconduct, in Montana and Texas.

Investor disputes

Most investor disputes start the same way: the distributions stop, the answers get vague, and the operating agreement turns out to say less than everyone assumed. We act for investors, members, and partners when the relationship breaks down — and for companies and managers defending against claims that overreach.

• Breach of fiduciary duty by managers, general partners, and controlling owners
• Fraud and misrepresentation in soliciting or managing investments
• Self-dealing, diverted funds, and mismanagement of company assets
• Disputes among LLC members and partners — deadlock, buyouts, and exits
• Accounting, distribution, and books-and-records disputes
• Minority owners squeezed out of closely held companies

Business torts

Business torts are the claims that arise when someone outside — or inside — a business relationship damages it by wrongful conduct rather than by breaking a contract. Tortious interference with a contract or a business relationship, unfair competition, and conversion of business property can disrupt a company's operations and destroy its value as surely as any breach. These claims carry their own elements, their own defenses, and often their own damages theories, and they are frequently pleaded alongside contract and fiduciary claims in the same case. We prosecute them and defend against them.

Where these cases meet construction

A construction litigation firm sees these disputes for a structural reason: development projects concentrate large sums of investor money under the control of a few people, on timelines where cost overruns and shortcuts are easy to bury. A defect dispute exposes the books; the books expose the venture. When a project goes wrong, the questions are rarely just about the building — they are about who knew, who paid, and where the money went. We handle the investor fight and the construction fight as one case when they are one case.

How we approach them

These cases are document cases. Operating agreements, capital accounts, draw requests, bank records — the story is in the paper, and we build it there before anyone testifies. Some disputes call for aggressive litigation; others are better resolved through a negotiated buyout or settlement that gets an investor's capital back without three years of discovery. Many operating agreements route disputes to arbitration, which changes the forum but not the preparation. In every case the strategy follows the client's actual objective: recover the investment, unwind the relationship, or defend the business you built.

If a business partner, manager, or investment has gone sideways on you, have us review the documents before positions harden.

Discuss your case — or call (406) 219-8422 / email meyer@meyerconstructionlaw.com.