Davis v. Davis

526 F.2d 1286, 1976 U.S. App. LEXIS 12842
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 13, 1976
DocketNo. 75-3080
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 526 F.2d 1286 (Davis v. Davis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. Davis, 526 F.2d 1286, 1976 U.S. App. LEXIS 12842 (5th Cir. 1976).

Opinion

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge:

This action has been brought under § 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 19341 and Rule 10b-52 of the Regulations, promulgated thereunder, by plaintiff William S. Davis against the individual defendants T. Cullen Davis and Kenneth W. Davis, Jr., and the corporate defendants Cummins Sales & Service, Inc., Mid-Continent Supply Co., Great Western Drilling Co., Kendavis Industries International, Inc. and Stratoflex, Inc. Plaintiff and the individual defendants each own approximately 30% of the outstanding shares of the corporate defendants, which were left to them by. their father.

The complaint asserts that the defendants have entered into, and are continuing, a fraudulent scheme of coercive conduct and manipulative devices designed to force plaintiff to sell his shares in [1288]*1288Mid-Continent and Great Western to the defendants at prices less than those fixed by contract3 and at a small fraction of the reasonable value of the shares.

Defendants filed a motion to dismiss “for lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter,” asserting that plaintiff had not alleged a purchase or sale of securities. The District Court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss, but it certified its order under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1292(b) to permit an interlocutory appeal. By order dated July 23, 1975, this Court allowed the appeal.

Since this matter comes before us on plaintiff’s complaint and defendants’ motion to dismiss, we accept as we must the facts alleged in the complaint as true.

As stated in the complaint, the defendants’ manipulative scheme and course of conduct consists of numerous acts directed at forcing plaintiff to sell his securities at a grossly inadequate price. These acts include (i) depriving plaintiff access to or control over funds owned by him, any return on his investment, or access to corporate information, (ii) destroying the availability to plaintiff of credit from his corporate holdings, and (iii) clouding title to plaintiff’s shares.

When the coercive scheme commenced, certain of the corporate defendants held either options or contracts to purchase plaintiff’s shares in those corporations upon the termination of plaintiff’s employment. Following a series of disagreements over management decisions, plaintiff was discharged from all positions with the various corporate defendants, and the contracts to purchase plaintiff’s stock were thus triggered. Defendants, however, have refused to purchase plaintiff’s shares at the price fixed by contract, even though that price is already below fair market -value. Instead, after a series of maneuvers designed to make plaintiff financially destitute, they have offered to buy plaintiff’s stock for a fraction of the contract price.

The scheme asserted in the complaint is multi-faceted. The individual defendants are withdrawing earnings from the corporate defendants in the form of large salaries and fringe benefits while cutting plaintiff off from every equivalent return on his investment by not declaring any dividends. The individual defendants have placed corporate assets and resources behind individual borrowings so that tremendous sums of cash are-made available to the defendant T. Cullen Davis without the necessity of declaring any dividends that would be shared with plaintiff and thus enable plaintiff to resist the financial pressure brought upon him.

The defendants are depressing the value which plaintiff can obtain from others for his shares, thereby forcing their sale to defendants, by denying plaintiff all financial information concerning the corporate defendants (except as to Stratoflex, whose public shareholders introduced the necessity of public disclosure under federal securities laws). Defendants’ denial of information has been accomplished in part by firing employees who have so much as spoken with plaintiff.

Plaintiff would have financial resources from credit based upon his substantial, though disadvantaged, stock holdings but for the acts of defendants. That credit would strengthen his ability to withstand the other financial pressures. To prevent plaintiff from receiving credit based upon his stock holdings in the corporate defendants, defendants have maliciously filed exaggerated “damage” claims and caused the publication thereof in newspapers so as to hamper and prevent plaintiff from obtaining any appreciable loans.

[1289]*1289In order to impede and attempt to destroy plaintiff’s right to dividends from the ample earnings of the defendant corporations and to force plaintiff to sell, the defendants have engaged in a rapid, reckless program of acquisitions consuming all the cash coming into the companies and running up debts in excess of $150,000,000.00 in those corporations, often upon terms prohibiting dividends.

These are the major facets of the scheme asserted in the complaint. In short, the scheme consists of refusing to honor the contracts to purchase plaintiff’s shares at the contract price, and cutting plaintiff off from all financial resources in order to force him to sell his shares to the defendants for a grossly inadequate consideration.

Plaintiff prays for equitable relief — he does not seek damages — against defendants’ scheme in various prayers designed to destroy the effectiveness of that scheme by requiring the corporations to provide plaintiff with some return on his investment and thereby eliminate the necessity of his selling.

The main issue on appeal is whether plaintiff qualifies as a purchaser or seller of securities so as to fall under the federal mantle woven by the Act and Regulations. See Herpich v. Wallace, 5 Cir., 1970, 430 F.2d 792; Birnbaum v. Newport Steel Corp., 2 Cir., 1952, 193 F.2d 461, cert. denied, 343 U.S. 956, 72 S.Ct. 1051, 96 L.Ed. 1356.

We agree with the District Court that the Act itself settles the issue. Section 3(a) of the Act provides the following definitions:

“(13) The terms ‘buy’ and ‘purchase’ each include any contract to buy, purchase, or otherwise acquire.
(14) The terms ‘sale’ and ‘sell’ each include any contract to sell or otherwise dispose of.”

15 U.S.C.A. § 78c(a). The heart of the alleged scheme was the defendants’ refusal to honor the contracts to purchase plaintiff’s stock. Even though he has not yet actually sold his stock, plaintiff is clearly a “seller” under these definitional provisions of the Act.4

Our decision is bolstered by a Second Circuit case, Mutual Shares Corp. v. Genesco, Inc., 2 Cir., 1967, 384 F.2d 540. In Genesco, the complaint alleged that the parties in control purposely kept the price of the shares of the company involved artificially low by holding dividends at a minimum level and by lending funds at inadequate rates to the controlling shareholder (Genesco, Inc.) and that such scheme was undertaken to force a sale to the defendant at an inadequate price — a situation similar to our case. The Genesco Court stated:

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Bluebook (online)
526 F.2d 1286, 1976 U.S. App. LEXIS 12842, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-davis-ca5-1976.