Denevi

Plaintiff Pietro G. Denevi brought this action against defendants Barry Swenson, Green Valley Corporation (Green Valley), and LGCC, LLC (LGCC), alleging in part that defendants fraudulently induced plaintiff to join them in a venture to develop certain property and to give up, in reliance on their representations, plaintiff’s right to purchase that property, after which defendants failed to develop the property but instead caused the loss of plaintiff’s former interest. The trial court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment because it concluded that plaintiff, who was a 20 percent owner of LGCC, had made a binding election of remedies by prosecuting to judgment a derivative action on its behalf against Green Valley and Swenson for the same loss. On appeal plaintiff contends that the judgment in the derivative action does not preclude him from pursuing his personal claims against defendants in this action. We initially held that although plaintiff’s successful prosecution of the derivative suit did not amount to an election of remedies, it did effectively preclude plaintiff from asserting that defendants had breached any duty owed to him personally. We thereupon…