Conklin v. Perdue

15 Mass. L. Rptr. 283
CourtMassachusetts Superior Court
DecidedSeptember 17, 2002
DocketNo. 990335BLS
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 15 Mass. L. Rptr. 283 (Conklin v. Perdue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Conklin v. Perdue, 15 Mass. L. Rptr. 283 (Mass. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

van Gestel, J.

This matter is before the Court for findings of fact, rulings of law and an order for judgment following a jury-waived trial.

FINDINGS OF FACT

The plaintiff, Jeffrey M. Conklin (“Conklin”), at the time of the start of the trial on June 18, 2002, was unemployed. He is a graduate of Boston College and holds a J.D. degree from Villanova University and an M.B.A. degree from Duke University.

Conklin worked for a number of years, from 1979 to 1993, at Digital Equipment Corporation (“DEC”). He started at DEC as a contract negotiator and advanced through a position as legal counsel for international purchasing to legal counsel for international matters in the financial area.

The defendant, Beth A. Perdue (“Perdue”), is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University and has a law degree from the University of Michigan. She also worked for a number of years at DEC, in the purchasing and contracts department.

While at DEC, Conklin met Perdue. They developed a personal, as well as business, relationship that included some international overlap.

Perdue left DEC in 1992, and Conklin resigned from DEC on June 4, 1993. In 1993, the two then determined to join together and establish a consulting firm to advise businesses on strategic alliances. “Strategic alliances” was a catch phrase that covered a range of activities designed to establish more positive relationships between businesses or between businesses and markets. Conklin and Perdue hoped to capitalize on their experience at DEC in understanding the intricacies of negotiating international agreements and on their knowledge of international markets, particularly in south Asia.

The entity that they formed eventually became CPIntemational, Inc. (“CPI”). The “CP” stood for Conklin and Perdue.

CPI was a Massachusetts corporation which, for taxing purposes, made an election to be treated as a Subchapter S corporation. Conklin and Perdue were each directors, officers and 50% shareholders of CPI. Perdue was the president, and Conklin was the treasurer. CPI, with its two shareholders, an absence of any market for its stock, and its essentially total shareholder participation in management was a classic closely held corporation of the kind described in Donahue v. Rodd Electrotype Company of New England, Inc., 367 Mass. 578 (1975).

CPI had no capital in the beginning and, although it earned small amounts of money on a few contracts, was basically financed by Conklin, either personally or with money he borrowed from his parents. Perdue made essentially no capital contributions to CPI.

Each of Conklin and Perdue reimbursed themselves for expenses, the largest amount of which seemed to be related to international travel to countries in south Asia. Conklin and Perdue also each took from CPI what they called a “draw.” One of the issues in dispute in this case is whether that draw should actually be considered a loan. The Court finds, however, that CPI’s final Federal tax return, for the year 1997, includes a Schedule K-1 in the name of Perdue, listing “Property distributions (including cash) . . . reported to [her] on Form 1099" of$112,434.This$112,434amountisthe ’’draw" in contest. Perdue produced her own individual tax return establishing that she paid taxes on this amount.

In October of 1994, Conklin was invited to make a speech in India before the U.S./India Business Council. The U.S. Secretary of Commerce, the late Ron Brown, led the United States delegation to India in connection with the program. It being customary to give symbolic gifts in connection with such trade mission affairs, Conklin and Perdue suggested that the gift be an Internet web-page to the people of India; the web-page would demonstrate ways in which American and Indian businesses could locate, communicate and collaborate with each other. The idea was accepted, and CPI set about creating a demonstration web-page.

Because CPI had no funds to create such a web-page, it put together a consortium of four American Companies — IBM, BBN, Sun Microsystems and Bay Networks — to fund the creation of the demonstration web-page. The total funding was about $60,000. What was created was an example of how the sponsoring companies’ products could be used in India. The demonstration piece had no interactive functions. The program ultimately became known at CPI as ‘Tradelnfo.”

The trade mission to India was not a success. It came at the time of a fund-raising scandal implicating the Secretary of Commerce. CPI got no follow-on consulting business from this program.

CPI did, however, make contact with the Confederation of Indian Industries (“CII”). The two entities entered into a promotional agreement whereby the CII membership list was to be put on the CPI Tradelnfo program. The idea was that American companies would use the Tradelnfo program with the CII database to make business-to-business contacts in India. CPI hoped that once those contacts were made, [293]*293it would then be engaged by the American companies for consulting work in their negotiations of agreements with the Indian companies. In a direct sense, this program between CPI and CII was non-revenue generating and actually cost CPI some money.

In the summer of 1995, CPI started on theTradelnfo project with the CII database by beginning to create another canned demonstration similar to that used in the Indian trade mission program. CPI, which was running out of money at the time, engaged a small company in New York named Cyber House Publishing (“Cyber House”) to create a web site. The web site was intended to permit U.S. companies to search the CII database for Indian companies and then call CPI for assistance in getting together.

This clearly was not a large project. Cyber House’s billings only totaled $4,800. But, as an example of CPI’s strained financial circumstances, even that amount was not fully paid.

What Cyber House created, however, could be accessed only by contacting Cyber House. It was, basically, a low-level protoiype with no Internet address. It had no software systems, nor was it interactive or able to perform business-to-business communications.

By the end of 1995, CPI was essentially out of money, and it had only one customer, a company called HCL, which wás overdue on its payments. Tensions arose between Conklin and Perdue. Conklin continued to be the sole source of money to finance CPI, and he was concerned that Perdue was not focusing adequately on the financial end of the business, nor was she contributing to it. In fact, Conklin was concerned that Perdue was an economic drain on the company.

Also by the end of 1995, CPI was located in leased space at 36 Newbury Street in Boston’s Back Bay. The rent was $ 1,650 per month, and Conklin alone was on the lease as a guarantor.

Conklin claims — and Perdue denies the claim — that in the summer of 1995 he had her sign a promissory note reflecting the indebtedness she owed the company for the draw money she was taking. Conklin says that the note was provided to him by the company’s accountants and that Perdue executed two copies thereof. He testified that he then put the two signed copies of the note in a manila envelope which he thereafter kept in a drawer of his desk. No such promissory note, nor any copy thereof, was produced at trial.

By late December 1995, Conklin concluded that CPI was not economically sustainable and had no good future prospects.

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Bluebook (online)
15 Mass. L. Rptr. 283, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/conklin-v-perdue-masssuperct-2002.