Olmstead v. Federal Trade Commission (2010)
Citation: 44 So. 3d 76 · Court: Supreme Court of Florida · Decided: June 24, 2010 · Opinion: Canady, J.; Lewis, J., dissenting.
Source note (2026-10-18):
- Links on this page to
https://static.case.law/so3d/44/cases/0076-01.jsonare an (unofficial Caselaw Access Project copy, retrieved before 2026-10-18; host disallows automated access); no official or otherwise permitted full-text copy was located on 2026-10-18.
Case page. Legal information, not legal advice. Opinion and current § 605.0503 rechecked: 2026-10-17. Subsequent-treatment review remains limited as stated below.
Facts
The FTC held a federal-court judgment against Shaun Olmstead and Julie Connell. Assets including several Florida single-member LLCs owned by one or the other were placed in receivership, and “[t]o partially satisfy that judgment, the FTC obtained — over the appellants’ objection — an order compelling appellants to endorse and surrender to the receiver all of their right, title, and interest in their LLCs.” On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court about the judgment creditor’s remedies. (Source: https://static.case.law/so3d/44/cases/0076-01.json , retrieved 2026-10-16.)
Holding
The court rephrased the question as “[w]hether Florida law permits a court to order a judgment debtor to surrender all right, title, and interest in the debtor’s single-member limited liability company to satisfy an outstanding judgment,” and answered yes: “the statutory charging order provision does not preclude application of the creditor’s remedy of execution on an interest in a single-member LLC.”
Reasoning
The conclusion “rests on the uncontested right of the owner of the single-member LLC to transfer the owner’s full interest in the LLC and the absence of any basis in the LLC Act for abrogating in this context the long-standing creditor’s remedy of levy and sale under execution.” The court contrasted the LLC statute with the partnership statute, which made the charging order an exclusive remedy. The dissent would have held the remedy “is not provided for under the plain language of the LLC Act.”
Subsequent history
Florida’s current LLC statute addresses the issue directly: the charging order is the “sole and exclusive remedy” except that, for a single-member LLC, a court may order a foreclosure sale on a showing that distributions will not satisfy the judgment within a reasonable time, and the purchaser “obtains the member’s entire limited liability company interest” and “becomes the member”; for multi-member LLCs foreclosure “is not available” — Fla. Stat. § 605.0503(3)–(6) (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0600-0699/0605/Sections/0605.0503.html , retrieved 2026-10-16). The statute’s history note lists ch. 2013-180; the full intermediate 2011-77 enactment was also recovered and compared in the independent Florida review.
Practical impact
For a buyer at a Florida execution or foreclosure sale of a single-member LLC interest, the purchaser at the foreclosure authorized by current § 605.0503(4)–(5) takes the whole interest and becomes the member; the historical opinion does not dispense with that statute’s reasonable-time showing. For an owner, single-member LLC status does not shield the interest from a judgment creditor in Florida.
Good-law status
The holding interpreted the former LLC Act; the current rule is statutory (§ 605.0503).
Applies in →
equity-interests-stock-llc-charging-orders, florida
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the current primary source before relying on this summary.
Independent Primary-Text Comparison — 2026-10-17
Full 2011-77 intermediate amendment and current 605.0503 narrow remedy: exclusivity, reasonable-time showing, single-member foreclosure/full membership only; no multi-member foreclosure. Current operative comparison: § 605.0503. Full holding verification is not a comprehensive still-good-law certificate. Where the former source URL failed, the working full-opinion source now appears in metadata; original failed receipts remain separate in the review evidence.
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited primary sources and consult a licensed Florida attorney before acting.