Berkwitz v. Humphrey

130 F. Supp. 142, 71 Ohio Law. Abs. 398, 57 Ohio Op. 323, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3343
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedJanuary 14, 1955
DocketCiv. A. 27386
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 130 F. Supp. 142 (Berkwitz v. Humphrey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Berkwitz v. Humphrey, 130 F. Supp. 142, 71 Ohio Law. Abs. 398, 57 Ohio Op. 323, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3343 (N.D. Ohio 1955).

Opinion

McNAMEE, District Judge.

This is a derivative action by plaintiff, a resident of Massachusetts, against the Pittsburgh-Consolidation Coal Company, a Pennsylvania corporation, two of its directors, and the Hanna Coal Company. Plaintiff is the owner of 200 of the two million shares of the Common Stock of Pittsburgh, which is less than fifteen-one thousandths of one per cent, of the corporation’s outstanding shares. The action was filed in 1950 and has reached the stage where defendants’ motion for summary judgment has been overruled.

Shortly after the overruling of the motion for summary judgment plaintiff filed a similar action against other directors and the corporation in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. In the Pennsylvania case the corporation filed a motion to require plaintiff to post a bond to secure its expenses incurred in the defense of the action or, in the alternative, to join as plaintiffs shareholders whose holdings, together with those of plaintiff, would equal five per cent, or more of the corporation’s outstanding shares. The motion was based upon Public Law 253 of the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, particularly Section 2 thereof. In its pertinent part Public Law 253 provides:

Section 1.

“In any suit brought to enforce a secondary right on the part of one or more shareholders against any officer, or director, or former officer or director of a corporation, domestic or foreign, because such corporation refuses to enforce rights which may properly be asserted by it, the plaintiff or plaintiffs must aver and it must be made to appear, that the plaintiff or each plaintiff was a stockholder at the time of the transaction of which he complains, or that his stock devolved upon him by operation of law from a person who was a stockholder at such time.” 12 Purdon’s Statutes, § 1321. (Emph. sup.)

Section 2.

“In any such suit instituted or maintained by holder or holders of less than five per centum of the outstanding shares of any class of such corporation’s stock or voting trust certificates, the corporation in whose right such action is brought shall be entitled, at any stage of the proceedings, to require the plaintiff or plaintiffs to give security for the reasonable expenses, including attorneys’ fees, which may be incurred by it in connection with such suit, *144 and by the other ^parties defendant in connection therewith, for which it may become liable pursuant to section three of this act, to which security the corporation shall have recourse in such amount as the court having jurisdiction shall determine upon the termination of such action. The amount of such security may, from time to time, be increased in the discretion of the court having jurisdiction of such action upon showing that the security provided has or may become inadequate.” 12 Purdon’s Statutes, § 1322. (Emph. sup.)

The District Court in Pennsylvania granted defendant’s motion, and upon failure of the plaintiff to comply with the terms of the court’s order that action was dismissed. Following the dismissal of the suit in Pennsylvania, defendant filed a motion in this court to require plaintiff to post a bond to secure defendant’s expenses, including attorney’s fees, which have been and' may be incurred in the defense of this litigation. This motion also is based upon Section 2 of the statute quoted above.

Statutory provisions similar to Section 2 are in effect in several of the States; but no such provision is contained in the Federal statutes, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or in the statutes of Ohio..

However, it is urged by defendant that the provisions of the Pennsylvania statute requiring plaintiff to post a bond to secure defendant’s expenses in litigation created a substantive right in defendant which, under the doctrine .of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188, and the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution, must be recognized and given effect by this court.

The statute impos.es the same conditions upon shareholders of foreign as well as domestic corporations who institute derivative actions in Pennsylvania, and it confers upon' both, foreign and domestic corporations, as defendants in a derivative 'action in that State the identical right to demand security for defendant's expenses of litigation. . :

Defendant concedes that as to foreign corporations and their shareholders the statute has no extraterritorial effect; but attempts to construe it as having such effect when applied to domestic corporations of Pennsylvania and their shareholders. This attempt fails. It rests upon the premise that the right of a Pennsylvania corporation to demand security in a derivative action by shareholders owning less than five per cent of the stock is a substantive right. This is an imprecise and incorrect designation of the right granted by the statute. But regardless of its classification, the right conferred upon domestic corporations is the same right that is conferred upon foreign corporations, as parties defendant in derivative actions in the courts of Pennsylvania, and it must be given the same limited territorial effect.

The ease of Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 1230, 93 L.Ed. 1528, does not require a different construction. In Cohen the corporation was organized under the laws of Delaware. That State imposed no condition requiring a shareholder in a derivative action to post a bond securing the corporation’s expenses. The action was brought in New Jersey, which, at the commencement of the action, had no such statutory requirement. However, during the pendency of the action, the Legislature of New Jersey enacted a statute providing that in a derivative action brought by shareholders whose interest is less than five per cent of the value of all outstanding shares and has a market value of less than $50,000, the plaintiffs may be required to give security for the corporation’s expenses of such litigation. It was held in Cohen that a statute of the state of the forum which conditions a shareholder’s right t.o maintain a derivative action in that State upon the furnishing of security for the corporation’s expenses in litigation was something more than a mere “regulation qf procedure.” While in its reference *145 to the new liability created by the New Jersey statute the court described it as “substantive”,, it is clear that the term was not used in its traditional sense as affecting the merits of the action.

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Related

In Re the Complaint of the Bethlehem Steel Corp.
435 F. Supp. 944 (N.D. Ohio, 1976)
Berkwitz v. Humphrey
163 F. Supp. 78 (N.D. Ohio, 1958)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
130 F. Supp. 142, 71 Ohio Law. Abs. 398, 57 Ohio Op. 323, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3343, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/berkwitz-v-humphrey-ohnd-1955.