Glosser v. Posner (In Re Ivan F. Boesky Securities Litigation)

170 B.R. 61, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7247, 1994 WL 257087
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedJune 1, 1994
Docket89 Civ. 3789 (MP), MDL No. 732
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 170 B.R. 61 (Glosser v. Posner (In Re Ivan F. Boesky Securities Litigation)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Glosser v. Posner (In Re Ivan F. Boesky Securities Litigation), 170 B.R. 61, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7247, 1994 WL 257087 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MILTON POLLACK, Senior District Judge:

This action was originally commenced in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware under the title of Rubin v. Posner et al., and was transferred to this Court by order of the Judicial Panel on Mul-tidistrict Litigation filed May 25,1989, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407.

It is self-evident that this Court has exclusive jurisdiction over this suit during its pendency in the site of the multidistrict proceedings in the Southern District of New York. See Manual for Complex Litigation, Second, § 31.121 (1985) (“Once a transfer under § 1407 becomes effective — when the order granting the transfer is filed in the office of the clerk of the transferee court— the jurisdiction of the transferor court ceases and the transferee court has exclusive jurisdiction.”) With due respect and apologies to the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, that Court has no jurisdiction to impair or impede or dictate proceedings affecting the parties or attorneys who have been transferred to this Court while the proceedings herein are incomplete, ongoing and have not been remanded to that or any other Court by the Multidistrict Panel; the action was transferred here and remains here until expressly remanded. See In re Baldwin-United Corp., 770 F.2d 328, 337 (2d Cir.1985) (“the jurisdiction of a multi-district court is ‘analogous to that of a court in an in rem action or in a school desegregation case, where it is intolerable to have conflicting orders from different courts’ ” (quoting 17 C. Wright & A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure, *63 § 4225)). See also Glasstech, Inc. v. AB Kyro OY, 769 F.2d 1574, 1576-77 (Fed.Cir.1985) (holding that transferee court has exclusive jurisdiction following transfer and holding that “[t]he parties cannot confer jurisdiction by mutual consent.”) A transferee court’s inherent power cannot be circumscribed or usurped by impermissible actions taken by other federal courts, albeit that they may be bankruptcy courts.

The Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Court’s orders of May 1994, made at the instance of the plaintiff in this suit, Mark L. Glosser, were undoubtedly the result of nondisclosure of the facts and the situation of this case in this District and with this Court, and therefore made inadvertently and without knowledge of the status of the case. Undoubtedly, the Bankruptcy Court was not informed by Glosser and those acting with him of the background to the case and of the exclusive authority of this Court in the premises or that this Multidistrict Court was in the midst of ongoing and uncompleted proceedings herein affecting this and other multidistrict proceedings as indicated more particularly hereafter. These delinquencies by Glosser were seemingly in flagrant contempt of this Court’s jurisdiction, conferred by the Multi-district Panel of the Judicial Conference, and control of this case and in disrespect of the Bankruptcy Court.

Plainly, as is indicated in the copy of the extraordinary annexed letter of Glosser to the attorneys for the plaintiff before this Court, said Glosser proceeded in secrecy before the Pennsylvania Court and in secrecy from this Court, failing to inform the Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Court of the status of this transferred action, and the authority of this Court in the premises. The orders so sought and obtained collide with, frustrate and would impair this Court’s jurisdiction and authority in the ongoing and incomplete matters pending in this action and in other multidistrict matters related to and bearing hereon. As part of this Court’s jurisdiction, this Court has before it the claim of Pennsylvania Engineering Corporation (of which Glosser is trustee) asserted against other defendants, including Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc., for the same damages deriving from the identical securities transactions sued upon in this case.

Accordingly this Court directs the plaintiff herein, over whom this Court has personal jurisdiction, to immediately lay before the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania a copy of this memorandum and apply for the rescission of all orders obtained from that Court at the instance of Mark Glosser and any other, concerning any matter involved in this and any related claims during the pendency of this transferred action in this Court.

For the guidance of the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, a brief summary of some salient matters affected by Glosser’s improper actions follows.

On a motion on behalf of the plaintiff herein under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 and based on findings of fact made by this Court in S.E.C. v. Drexel Burnham Lambert, 837 F.Supp. 587 (S.D.N.Y.1993), aff'd 16 F.3d 520 (2d Cir.1994), this Court held that under the doctrine of collateral estoppel the plaintiff was entitled to partial summary judgment of liability and the case was then set for trial on the remaining issue of damages. On the verge of trial thereof, Posner offered to settle at a conference in Philadelphia at the offices of plaintiffs counsel herein. The negotiations continued in New York before the undersigned and agreement was reached on the amount of the settlement. Since the terms of the settlement included a demand that all outstanding matters pertaining to Posner be released by the plaintiff and vice versa, the parties were given a continuance of trial and the jury trial on the issue of damages originally demanded herein was waived.

The parties were directed to submit for this Court’s consideration and approval the papers necessary to effectuate the contemplated result. Since there was complexity involved in the drafting, a period of approximately two weeks was envisioned before the parties would return to the Court and petition for this Court’s approval and judgment to conclude this case and the subsidiary proceedings involved.

Unknown to this Court, however, Glosser in the interim undertook to assert that Ber *64 ger & Montague, plaintiffs attorneys of record, were discharged, and then to appear before the Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Court requesting an order to take over the settlement sum with the purpose to present this Court with a purported discontinuance of this suit and an alleged agreement of settlement prepared by him or Posner’s attorneys and signed by himself and Posner’s attorneys; the latter were apparently told that the Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Court had taken jurisdiction of the settlement proceeds and had ordered them to be deposited in the office of the Clerk of Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Glosser’s attempt to discharge plaintiffs attorneys herein was without regard to this Court’s requirements and in violation of General Rule 3(c), which states:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
170 B.R. 61, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7247, 1994 WL 257087, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/glosser-v-posner-in-re-ivan-f-boesky-securities-litigation-nysd-1994.