David B. KUSNER, Appellant, v. FIRST PENNSYLVANIA CORPORATION Et Al.

531 F.2d 1234
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedMarch 15, 1976
Docket75--1629
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 531 F.2d 1234 (David B. KUSNER, Appellant, v. FIRST PENNSYLVANIA CORPORATION Et Al.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
David B. KUSNER, Appellant, v. FIRST PENNSYLVANIA CORPORATION Et Al., 531 F.2d 1234 (1st Cir. 1976).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

Before HASTIE, GIBBONS and ROSENN, Circuit Judges.

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from part of an order dismissing a complaint on the ground that the plaintiff lacks standing to assert the claims alleged in any of the four counts. Plaintiff-appellant is David B. Kusner, the holder of eighteen convertible debentures and warrants to purchase shares of the First Pennsylvania Mortgage Trust (the Trust), a Massachusetts business trust organized under the sponsorship of First Pennsylvania Corporation. The defendants are First Pennsylvania Corporation; its subsidiaries, First Pennsylvania Banking and Trust Co. (the Bank), Associated Mortgage Companies, Inc. (the mortgage banker) and Associates Advisors, Inc. (the investment advisers); and eight individual defendants who are trustees of the Trust. Counts I — III of the complaint allege derivative causes of action against the Trust, which is a nominal defendant, for alleged violations of the Investment Advisers Act,1 for breach of fiduciary duties and for self-dealing. Count IV alleges a Rule 23(b)(3) class action, on plaintiff’s own behalf and on behalf of other holders of convertible debentures and warrants. That count repeats the allegations of Counts I — III, but also alleges that the plaintiff purchased the securities in reliance on a prospectus which was materially false and misleading.2

The district court held that Counts I — III should be dismissed because plaintiff was a creditor of the Trust and as such, under Rule 23.1 and our holding in Kauffman v. Dreyfus Fund, Inc., 434 F.2d 727 (3d Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 974, 91 S.Ct. 1190, 28 L.Ed.2d 323 (1971), could not pursue a derivative claim; because the Investment Advisers Act did not afford creditors standing to prosecute derivative suits for the benefit of the Trust; and because the complaint did not allege compliance with [1237]*1237the requirement of Rule 23.1 that a demand for action be made on the independent trustees prior to suit. No appeal has been taken from the dismissal of Counts I — III, and thus the correctness of those rulings is not before us. The district court also dismissed Count IV, holding that the plaintiff, a mere creditor, lacked individual standing to sue.3 This appeal is from that ruling. We reverse.

I

Although Count IV is premised upon many of the same facts alleged in the derivative counts, it is a direct suit by a purchaser of securities, based on §§ 11 and 17(a) of the Securities Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 77k and 77q(a), and on §§ 10(b) and 18 of the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78j(b) and 78r. The district court concluded that the injury complained of in Count IV was not to the individual debenture holders, but to the Trust, and thus derivative. Invoking the rule of Kauffman v. Dreyfus Fund, Inc., supra, that a security holder may maintain a personal action only where he has suffered individual injury, the district court concluded that all the wrongs complained of were to the Trust, and dismissed Count IV of Kusner’s complaint for lack of the requisite personal interest.

This ruling, unfortunately, disregarded the allegations of the complaint, quoted in note 2 supra, regarding the falsity of the prospectus and the plaintiff’s reliance thereon. The defendants would have us disregard those allegations for they argue that even assuming both falsity and reliance, there has been no injury because the debentures are not in default on either interest or principal. To do so, however, we would have to ignore the convertible and warrant features of these securities.

The statutory provisions relied on in Count IV prohibit misrepresentations and material omissions in connection with the purchase and sale of securities. A private action for damages based on Rule 10b-5 requires that the plaintiff or those he represents either have bought or sold shares in connection with the fraud. Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U.S. 723, 95 S.Ct. 1917, 44 L.Ed.2d 539 (1975); Birnbaum v. Newport Steel Corp., 193 F.2d 461 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 343 U.S. 956, 72 S.Ct. 1051, 96 L.Ed. 1356 (1952). See Thomas v. Roblin Industries, Inc., 520 F.2d 1393 (3d Cir. 1975). The convertible debentures and the warrants here involved are securities within the meaning of both the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act. 15 U.S.C. §§ 77b(l), 78e(a)(10). The plaintiff alleges a purchase in reliance on a prospectus.

There is no question, then, that he meets the standing test of the Blue Chip-Birnbaum rule. The only remaining question is whether, on any state of facts which he might prove under the allegations of Count IV, he could show injury. Defendants argue that as long as the debentures are not in default, Kusner has not exercised his conversion privilege and he has not purchased stock pursuant to the warrants, he has not been injured by any misrepresentations that might have occurred. This argument overlooks the significant difference between debentures having no stock purchase or conversion features and debentures sold with such privileges. Because an appreciation of this difference is vital to this appeal, our analysis will begin by way of illustration.

To start with the simplest variety, let us hypothesize a $1000 bond with an 8% interest rate and no warrants or conversion features. The market price of that bond, assuming the issuer is solvent, will be primarily a function of the market interest rate. A prospectus containing representations about earnings potential which might be of material interest to a stockholder would, in all likelihood, be of no interest to the bondholder. This is because the bondholder will be paid his principal and interest regardless, and the market price of his security will be determined by factors external to the corporation’s earnings.

[1238]*1238If, however, that same bond is sold with a warrant to purchase one share of the corporation’s common stock at any time within a fixed time at a fixed price, then representations which are material to a purchaser of stock become material to the purchaser of the bond. When the issuer decided to issue a bond with a warrant attached it probably did so in the expectation that the potential earnings of the corporation would make the warrant attractive, and thereby produce a lower interest rate on the bond.

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Bluebook (online)
531 F.2d 1234, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/david-b-kusner-appellant-v-first-pennsylvania-corporation-et-al-ca1-1976.