Cherner v. TRANSITRON ELECTRONIC CORPORATION

221 F. Supp. 55, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10117
District Court, D. Massachusetts·Decided June 17, 1963·No. Civ. A. 61-857-W·Published·Cited by 32 cases

Opinion

WYZANSKI, District Judge.

This case is before the Court in response to an order to show cause why application for counsel fees and disbursements and petitions for reimbursement to plaintiffs and intervenors should or should not be granted.

Applications of counsel included:

1. Jacob Green, Louis Loss, James D. St. Clair, and Marvin Cherner, attorneys for the class of Transitron stockholders» including plaintiffs, intervenors, and Financial Industrial Fund, Inc. for an allowance of $750,000, less a disbursements, credit balance of $1,464.41.

2. Milton Pollack, attorney for Diversified Growth Stock Fund, Inc., One William Street Fund, Wellington Fund, Inc., and Wellington Equity Fund, Inc.,, for an allowance of $235,000 for disbursements of $1,233.95.

3. Lawrence Milberg, attorney for Jack Kassoff, for an allowance of $75,000' and for disbursements of $84.,

4. George I. Mulhern, Jr., attorney for Ina Schlesinger, et al., for an allowance of $3,000, and for disbursements of $89.31.

Petitioners for reimbursement included:

1. 25 plaintiffs and intervenors in the Cherner suit, $2,190.35.

2. Financial Industrial Fund, Inc.» $7,987.99.

3. Diversified Growth Stock Fund, Inc., $5,335.05; Wellington Fund, Inc. and Wellington Equity Fund, Inc., $5,-335.02; One William Street Fund, Inc., $5,335.04.

As background for an understanding of those applications a brief summary of this litigation is necessary.

Transitron filed with the S.E.C. two registration statements which became effective, respectively, in December 1959 and November 1960, each in connection with a different offering of its stock. In each of these registration statements Transitron stated that it “holds no patent licenses from others requiring the payment of royalties and knows of no patent rights of others which might interfere with the conduct of its business.” Each of these registration statements also contained statements (the basis of what were later called “accounting allegations”) with respect to inventories. The registration statements made no reference to any peculiar sales or production *57 difficulties (if there were any) or to any price deterioration (if there was any) or any unusually severe competition (if there was any) affecting Transitron products.

As appears in Cherner et al. v. Transitron Electronic Corp., D.Mass., 201 F. Supp. 934, Cherner and others on November 8, 1961 sued Transitron and others in this Court in C.A. 61-857-W, 221 F. Supp. 48. The complaint, as amended November 20, 1961 had 4 counts, 2 of which purported to be “spurious class actions” under F.R.Civ.P. Rule 23(a) (3). This amended complaint was directed at alleged material misstatements and material omissions with respect to patents, and was not directed at other possible misstatements or omissions.

March 30, 1962, Financial Industrial Fund, Inc. (hereafter called F.I.F.) filed .against the same defendants a complaint in C.A. 62-247 setting forth the same alleged material misstatements and omissions exclusively with respect to patents.

After much preliminary investigation of the so-called “accounting allegations”, ■on April 6, 9, and 10, 1962, respectively, (1) Diversified Growth Stock Fund, Inc., (2) Wellington Fund, Inc. and Wellington Equity Fund, Inc., and (3) One William Street Fund, Inc., filed in the Superior Court, New Castle County, State of Delaware, 3 separate complaints against Transitron Electronic Corporation, et al., alleging certain alleged misstatements and omissions in the Transitron registration statements with respect to valuation of inventory, price and production difficulties, price deterioration, and competitive problems of Transitron.

April 16, 1962 in this Court, F.I.F. amended its complaint to add substantially the same “accounting allegations” as those in the Delaware litigation. Cherner moved to amend his complaint in the ■same way, but this Court on April 30, 1962 denied the motion with leave to renew it after this Court had ruled on defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the patent question.

August 6, 1962 this Court denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment in the Cherner case. September 25, 1962 this Court denied in the F.I.F. action defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment with respect to the count setting forth the accounting allegations included in the amendment of April 16, 1962.

October 19, 1962 this Court in the Cherner case ordered that all issues as to whether there were misstatements or omissions in the registration statements with respect to the patent question be severed for separate trial.

During the summer and fall of 1962 there were informal settlement discussions involving the 2 Massachusetts and the 3 Delaware cases. All counsel who had appeared in the 5 cases negotiated an overall proposed settlement and brought their proposal to this Court, in chambers, on December 8, 1962. On December 26, 1962 this Court entered a conditional judgment with respect to the proposed settlement, and on the same day issued an order “to show cause directed to all persons who prior to February 21, 1962 had purchased shares of Transitron to show cause why the Agreement of Compromise and Settlement should not be approved and the conditional judgment entered by the Court made final.” January 23, 1963 this Court held a hearing on its show cause order. January 24, 1963 this Court filed an opinion indicating that if certain amendments were made in the proposed settlement the Court would give its approval to the settlement. January 28, 1963 this Court filed a further memorandum with respect to the proposed settlement. The parties having amended the proposed settlement to conform to this Court’s opinion and memorandum, this Court entered on February 1, 1963 a final judgment approving the amended Agreement of Compromise and Settlement. The time for appeal from that judgment expired. Thereafter, the individual defendants Bakalar, pursuant to the judgment, paid into Court United States obligations having a value of $5,300,000. And the applications and petitions now before the Court were filed in purported compliance *58 with paragraphs 3(a) and 3(c) of the amended Agreement, which provide:

“(a) To reimburse the plaintiffs and intervenors in the lawsuits listed in paragraph 1 above for fees and expenses heretofore actually paid by them to the undersigned counsel.”
“ (c) To pay, to the extent approved by the Court, the fees and disbursements of counsel of record heretofore appearing for plaintiffs and intervenors in the above entitled action and of counsel for plaintiffs in the other actions listed in paragraph 1 above. Plaintiffs and intervenors in said actions may urge all applicable grounds which support their claims for such fees and expenses. No party to this agreement shall object to or appeal from any allowance of such compensation on the ground that as a matter of law such compensation may not be based on the amount of the entire fund in Court. No fees or disbursements of counsel for defendants shall be paid out of the fund.”

It will be convenient first to consider together the first two applications listed earlier in this opinion: (1) that of Messrs. Green, Loss, St.

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Cherner v. TRANSITRON ELECTRONIC CORPORATION, 221 F. Supp. 55, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10117 (D. Mass. 1963).

221 F. Supp. 55 (Cherner v. TRANSITRON ELECTRONIC CORPORATION) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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