Curtis v. United States

63 Fed. Cl. 172, 2004 U.S. Claims LEXIS 325, 2004 WL 2827941
United States Court of Federal Claims·Decided December 9, 2004·No. No. 03-1247 C·Published·Cited by 10 cases

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

HEWITT, Judge.

The court has before it the parties’ briefing for a determination under Rule 17 of the Rules of the Court of Federal Claims (RCFC) of the identity of the real party in interest in this case. Plaintiffs Reply to [Court Order] (PI.’s Reply); Defendant’s Response to Plaintiffs Reply to Court Order (Def.’s Resp.). Rule 17(a) requires that “[e]very action ... be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest.” Ascertaining the proper party in interest is a threshold issue that must be resolved before reaching the merits of a claim. Page v. United States, 49 Fed.Cl. 521, 522 & n. 1 (2001). Courts must apply state law to determine the proper party in interest. See RCFC 17(b) (“The capacity of an individual ... to sue or be sued shall be determined by the law of the individual’s domicile____[or in the case of a corporation,] by the law under which it was organized.”).

In this case, plaintiff filed a complaint pro se alleging “wrongful default” and “wrongful harassment” involving contracts between an Oregon corporation and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). See Complaint (Compl.) at 2 (unnumbered page).1 If the corporate contractor is the real party in interest, it must be represented by an attorney in this court. See RCFC 83.1(e)(8) (“A corporation may only be represented by counsel.”); Talasila, Inc. v. United States, 240 F.3d 1064, 1066 (Fed.Cir.2001) (stating that a corporation “must be represented by counsel in order to pursue its claim against the United States in the Court of Federal Claims”). If Mr. Curtis, in his individual capacity, is the real party in interest, he may appear without an attorney in this ease. See RCFC 83.1(c)(8) (“An individual may represent oneself ... as a party before the court.”).

For the following reasons, the court determines that the dissolved corporation is the real party in interest and that Mr. Curtis retains a shareholder derivative claim from the corporate dissolution. A shareholder derivative claim is viewed under Rule 83.1 as a [174]*174corporate claim. Accordingly, whether this case is brought by Mr. Curtis or the corporation, Rules 17(a) and 83.1(c)(8) require that a corporation be represented by counsel, and Mr. Curtis may not proceed individually without counsel.

I. Background2

In response to plaintiffs pro se complaint, defendant asserted in a motion to dismiss that the corporate contractor “appears to be the real party in interest, and ... [as] a corporation [is] required to be represented by an attorney, ... pursuant to RCFC 83.1(c)(8).” Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss at 1; see also RCFC 83.1(c)(8) (“A corporation may only be represented by counsel.”). The court ordered plaintiff to obtain legal representation and, after his failure to do so, dismissed the complaint without prejudice. Order of May 21, 2004 at 2.

Some two months later, plaintiff filed a Motion to Reopen the case, alleging that the insolvent corporation had transferred its assets to plaintiff in his individual capacity. Plaintiff’s Motion to Reopen at 2; Curtis v. United States, 61 Fed.Cl. 511, 514 (2004) (“Plaintiff’s argument that [the corporation] is insolvent and its assets have been transferred to Mr. Curtis is an argument newly presented to the court.”). Furthermore, the court noted the possibility of a factual mistake in its May 21, 2004 determination of the corporate status of the contractor-in particular, its prior determination that “Oregon public records indicate that [it] was involuntarily dissolved ... before [the contractor] and the BLM entered into any of the contracts upon which the complaint is based and before this action was filed.” Curtis, 61 Fed.Cl. at 514-15 (internal citation omitted). On August 6, 2004, the court ordered that the judgment entered on May 21, 2004 be vacated. Id. at 516. The court ordered plaintiff to document the contractor’s corporate status during the time at issue in the complaint to allow the court to reconsider its prior determination of the real party in interest. Id. In its order vacating judgment, the court ordered plaintiff to provide:

(1) official documentation, including, without limitation, records of the Oregon Secretary of State, of [the corporate contractor’s] corporate status between approximately August 1998 and August 2000, when [the corporate contractor] entered into the contracts that form the basis of the complaint, and (2) official documentation of [the corporate contractor’s] insolvency and of the transfer of assets to Mr. Curtis as an individual, together with briefing explaining the impact of the foregoing for a determination under Rule 17 of the identity of the real party in interest in this case.

Id.

Pursuant to that order, plaintiff submitted documentation that indicated the registration by plaintiff of two separate Oregon corporations with nearly identical names, one established in 1995, Pl.’s Reply at 10 (unnumbered page), and the second established in 1998, id. at 8 (unnumbered page). “Curtis Ltd.” (Old Curtis) was established in February of 1995 and dissolved in April of 1996, before the BLM contracts at issue were entered into. See Curtis, 61 Fed.Cl. at 514; see also Pl.’s Reply at 10 (unnumbered page) (state records listing the filing of “Curtis Ltd.” on February 8, 1995 and its “involuntary dissolution” on April 5, 1996). Two years later, Mr. Curtis registered a new corporate name, “Curtis, Ltd.” (New Curtis), which name was the same as the name of the 1995 corporation except for the addition of a comma between “Curtis” and “Ltd.” See Pl.’s Reply at 1, It 1 (“On May 12, 1998 Curtis[,] Ltd. [w]as re[sic]-registered with the Oregon Corporate Division.”); id. at 8 (unnumbered page) (state records listing the “start date” for “Curtis, Ltd.” as May 12, 1998 under the history of the corporate name). New Curtis was in active corporate status until July of 2001, when it was administratively dissolved. See id. at 3, ¶ 7; id. at 9 (unnumbered page) (state records showing administrative dissolution on July 13, 2001).

Plaintiffs documentation effectively undercuts the basis on which the court vacated its prior judgment. See 61 Fed.Cl. at 514 (noting that Oregon public records indicated the [175]*175dissolution of Old Curtis in April 1996, “before [plaintiffs corporation] and the BLM entered into any of the contracts upon which the complaint is based”). New Curtis, however, existed in 1998-2000, when the contracts at issue in this case were entered into. Cf. Curtis, 61 Fed.Cl. at 515.3

Further to the court’s order vacating judgment, see id. at 516, plaintiff documented a corporate transfer of assets from New Curtis to Mr. Curtis individually in the form of a letter dated July 4, 2004 and notarized on August 19,2004, assigning “all pas[t], present [a]nd future assets of [New Curtis] [t]o ... Robert Curtis, individual.” Pl.’s Reply at 7 (unnumbered page).4 Plaintiff also argues that the transfer of corporate assets began “immediately” after the September 2000 “[w]rongful default” he alleges against the BLM, when “Robert Curtis ... began to liquidate all assets of [New Curtis] ... so Robert Curtis could survive.” Pl.’s Reply at 1-2, UU 3-5.

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Curtis v. United States, 63 Fed. Cl. 172, 2004 U.S. Claims LEXIS 325, 2004 WL 2827941 (uscfc 2004).

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