Charles Chaney and Lawrence Burdett were equal partners in a partnership in Georgia known as BMW Partners. Their agreement was silent as to the effect of a partner’s death on the firm. The...

Charles Chaney and Lawrence Burdett were equal partners in a partnership in Georgia known as BMW Partners. Their agreement was silent as to the effect of a partner’s death on the firm. The partnership’s sole asset was real property, which the firm leased in 1987 to a corporation that the partners coowned. Under the lease, the corporation was to pay the partnership $8,000 per month, but after a few years, the corporation began paying $9,000 per month. Chaney died on April 15, 1998. Burdett wanted to continue the partnership business and offered to buy Chaney’s estate’s interest in it. Meanwhile, claiming that the real property’s fair rental value was $4,500 (not $9,000) and that the corporation had overpaid the rent by $80,000, Burdett adjusted the rental payments to recoup this amount. Bonnie Chaney, Charles’s widow and his estate’s legal representative, filed a suit in a Georgia state court against Burdett, alleging in part that he had breached his fiduciary duty by adjusting the amount of the rent. Did Burdett’s fiduciary duty expire on Chaney’s death? Explain. Chaney v. Burdett, 274 Ga. 805, 560 S.E.2d 21 (2002).