By Sean Ducharme ( July 9, 2018, 1:35 PM EDT) -- On May 31, 2018, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued an opinion holding that the Virginia Limited Liability Company Act, or VLLCA, does not require a member of a limited liability company to first make a demand on the LLC prior to commencing a derivative proceeding on behalf of the LLC if doing so would be futile. The court's interpretation of the derivative action sections of the VLLCA in this case comes as a surprise to many Virginia law practitioners who since 2011 have interpreted the statute as requiring written demand prior to bringing a derivative claim in all cases. In Davis v. MKR Development LLC,[1] the court concluded that, while the 2011 amendments to the statute deleted the express demand futility language, they did not abolish the futility exception altogether. Rather, the amendments effectively replaced a statutory demand futility exception with a common law one....