Federal Deposit Insurance v. Schreiner

892 F. Supp. 860, 1995 WL 379970
District Court, W.D. Texas·Decided June 16, 1995·No. Civ. SA-93-CA-674·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

ORDER

SUTTLE, Senior District Judge.

Pending before the Court is the Motion to Reconsider Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss filed by defendant Jasper Moore, Jr. on April 18, 1995 and joined in by defendants Charles H. Johnston, Jane Flato Smith, Charles Schreiner, III, H. Dale Priour, and Raymond F. Barker. 1 The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (hereinafter “FDIC”) filed its opposition to the motion on April 28, 1995. Therefore the matter is ripe for resolution.

I.Background

In its Order dated March 24, 1994 2 , the Court addressed, inter alia, the various motions of the defendants to dismiss the FDIC’s claims as time-barred under the applicable Texas statute of limitations. 3 Defendants relied primarily on RTC v. Acton, 844 F.Supp. 307 (N.D.Tex.1994) to support their motions. The FDIC argued that its claims were timely filed by virtue of the application of the Texas tolling provision known as the adverse domination doctrine. Finding that Acton failed to adequately discuss the Fifth Circuit’s recently issued opinion in RTC v. Seale, 13 F.3d 850 (5th Cir.1994), the Court instead relied on U.S. Dist. Judge Steger’s decision in FDIC v. Henderson, 849 F.Supp. 495 (E.D.Tex.1994) to hold that the FDIC qualified for application of the adverse domination doctrine by virtue of its claim that the former directors had engaged in gross negligence. Accordingly, the Court denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss the FDIC’s remaining two claims of gross negligence and breach of fiduciary duty as time-barred.

On April 4, 1995, the Fifth Circuit issued its decision in RTC v. Acton, 49 F.3d 1086 (5th Cir.1995). Arguing that Acton represents new controlling authority, defendants urge the Court to revisit the issue of limitations. The FDIC opposes reconsideration on the ground that Acton does not represent a change in the law but merely clarifies the Fifth Circuit’s earlier opinion in RTC v. Seale, supra.

II.Jurisdiction

This Court has jurisdiction to entertain the instant motion to reconsider the motions to dismiss despite the pendency of the interlocutory appeal of its order of February 16, 1995. 4

III.Analysis

As noted, the defendants ask the Court to reconsider and reverse its order denying their motions to dismiss the FDIC’s claims as time-barred on the strength of RTC v. Acton, supra. By defendants’ calculations, the FDIC’s claims as to all but a handful of the subject loans would be time-barred if the Court reads Acton to hold that gross negligence does not suffice to trigger adverse domination. The FDIC, on the other hand, contends that Acton, like Seale, requires only that a plaintiff plead active participation in wrongdoing or fraud by the defendants to qualify for tolling via the ad *862 verse domination doctrine. The requisite proof of wrongdoing by defendants has been satisfied, the FDIC maintains, through its proffer of summary judgment evidence detailing the defendants’ active and continual violation of Federal Regulation 0. Understanding the holding of Acton and its relevancy to the issue under consideration necessarily entails a retracing of the recent evolution and development of the adverse domination doctrine in the Fifth Circuit in the context of cases involving claims by the FDIC or one of its counterparts against former directors of a failed financial institution.

In F.D.I.C. v. Dawson, 5 the Fifth Circuit first addressed the issue of the minimum showing a plaintiff must make to establish its entitlement to the adverse domination doctrine under Texas law. Specifically, the issue, as phrased by the Dawson court, was “whether Texas law would allow a plaintiff to establish the adverse domination doctrine by proving that a majority of a corporation’s directors was merely negligent.” 4 F.3d at 1311. 6 Finding no Texas case in which the adverse domination doctrine had been invoked based on the mere negligence of a majority of a corporation’s directors, the Fifth Circuit consulted the law of other circuits to shed light on how a Texas court would decide the issue. Declining to follow a .line of district court cases which had liberally applied the doctrine in cases where the RTC had alleged some form of negligence by a majority of the board of directors, the Fifth Circuit concluded that, under Texas law, a corporate plaintiff could not toll the statute of limitations under the doctrine of adverse domination unless it shows that a majority of its directors was more than negligent for the desired tolling period. 4 F.3d at 1313. Although holding that mere negligence would not suffice for adverse domination tolling, the Fifth Circuit withheld any ruling on the issue of precisely how culpable a majority of directors must be for adverse domination tolling to apply. 4 F.3d at 1313 n. 4.

The Fifth Circuit next addressed the adverse domination tolling issue in RTC v. Sealed In Seale. 7 the trial court granted the defendant director’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the RTC’s claims for breach of fiduciary duty and gross negligence were time-barred. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit, after reviewing the district court’s finding of no adverse domination de novo, affirmed the district court’s judgment. In doing so, it observed:

The RTC has not created any fact issues of regulatory violations or fraud, concealment, or other illegal activity amounting to more than negligence. The RTC argued gross negligence, but provided no more than conclusory assertions in support. It offered nothing to support a finding that a majority controlled the Jasper board in a more than negligent way.

13 F.3d at 854-55 (emphasis added). As this Court explained in its order of March 24, 1995, the emphasized language in this passage from Seale could be read to mean that the Fifth Circuit would have found that the RTC would have been entitled to submit the issue of adverse domination to the jury if its summary judgment evidence had raised an issue of fact as to whether the board had been grossly negligent in their management of the bank. 8

The most recent Fifth Circuit opinion grappling with the adverse domination issue was published in April of this year in RTC v. Acton, supra. In Acton,

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Federal Deposit Insurance v. Schreiner, 892 F. Supp. 860, 1995 WL 379970 (W.D. Tex. 1995).

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