Hawes v. C. E. Cook & Co.

64 F.R.D. 22, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 873, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8760
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Michigan
DecidedApril 30, 1974
DocketNo. G-228-73 C.A
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 64 F.R.D. 22 (Hawes v. C. E. Cook & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hawes v. C. E. Cook & Co., 64 F.R.D. 22, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 873, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8760 (W.D. Mich. 1974).

Opinion

ORDER AND PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

FOX, Chief Judge.

This is a securities case. The individual plaintiffs purchased one or more allegedly highly speculative securities [25]*25from the defendant C. E. Cook & Company, a Michigan corporation and brokerage firm. The plaintiffs, suing for themselves and others similarly situated,1 allege that the defendant C. E. Cook & Company defrauded them in connection with the sale of these securities by means of various acts, practices, and omissions in violation of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Sec. 17(a), 15 U.S.C. Sec. 77q; the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, Sec. 10(b), 15 U.S.C. Sec. 78j (b); and Securities and Exchange Commission Rules 10b-3, 17 C.F.R. Sec. 240.10b-3, and 10b-5, 17 C.F.R. Sec. 240.10b-5.

At all times material to this action, defendant C. Eugene Cook was an officer, director and majority shareholder of C. E. Cook & Company, and defendant Cook controlled said Company within the meaning of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, Sec. 20(a), 15 U.S.C. Sec. 78t(a). The plaintiffs allege that the defendant Cook willfully aided and abetted the alleged violations of the securities acts by the Company.

Attached to the Second Amended Complaint is a consent order entered on September 18, 1973, by the Michigan Department of Commerce, Corporation and Securities Bureau, revoking the registrations of C. E. Cook & Company as a securities broker-dealer and of C. Eugene Cook as a securities agent. Also attached to the Second Amended Complaint is an Order for Public Proceedings and Notice of Hearing entered on September 28, 1973, by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, in which the Commission states that it had obtained information tending to show that C. E. Cook & Company and C. Eugene Cook engaged in numerous practices of questionable validity under the federal securities statutes and regulations.

The case is presently before the court on several motions and related matters. These fall into three major categories. The first concerns the existence and use of the assets of C. E. Cook & Company and C. Eugene Cook and his wife since 1970. The second concerns the purchase, division, reconveyance, encumbrance, improvement, sale and disposition of the proceeds of sale of a 77-acre tract of land by Cook and his family. The third category relates to the place and manner of taking depositions. These will be considered seriatim.

I.

The plaintiffs have noticed the defendant C. Eugene Cook for a deposition and have requested Mr. Cook to produce all documents relating to the status, nature and location of funds of defendants C. E. Cook & Company and C. Eugene Cook on or about October 2, 1973 (the date this suit was filed). They have also requested documents relating to the application of such funds after October 2, 1973. In addition, the plaintiffs specifically request the production of C. E. Cook & Company’s federal income tax returns for 1970 and subsequent years and the production of federal income and gift tax returns of C. Eugene Cook and his wife, Harriet J. Cook, for 1970 and subsequent years. The court assumes that Mr. Cook would be deposed on the subjects to which the requested documents relate, among other matters.

The defendants have moved the court for protective orders concerning the requested documents and the proposed deposition. The defendants contend that the scope of the proposed discovery is not within F.R.Civ.P. 26 in that most of the items requested do not relate to the subject matter of the pending action and are not likely to lead to the discovery of any admissible evidence. The defendants contend also that much of the information sought in the proposed discovery relates principally to the collectibility of the defendants, a matter [26]*26contended to be exclusively within the province of F.R.Civ.P. 69.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), on the scope of discovery, provides, in pertinent part:

“Parties may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action, whether it relates to the claim or defense of . any other party .... It is not ground for objection that the information sought will be' inadmissible at the trial if the information sought appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.”

Plainly, the scope of discovery is broad, but not unlimited. The basic positive touchstone is relevance, including the reasonable possibility that the information sought would lead to admissible evidence. One fundamental limit is privilege.

Thus, the issue is whether the matters sought to be discovered are relevant to the subject matter of this suit.

Section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 makes it unlawful for any person, “directly or indirectly,” to use “in connection with the purchase or sale of any security . . . , any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of” Securities and Exchange Commission rules. Rule 10-b makes it unalwful for any person, “directly or indirectly ... to engage in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.”

Since World War II, and especially in recent years, Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 have been liberally interpreted to reach a wide variety of corporate acts and practices which affect securities. In Superintendent of Insurance v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 404 U.S. 6, 92 S.Ct. 165, 30 L.Ed.2d 128, decided by the Supreme Court in 1971, there was not a fraud in the sale of the securities as such. Rather, corporate insiders had sold the securities from the corporation’s holdings, and had misappropriated the proceeds to pay for their own purchase of all the corporation’s stock. The corporation’s Board of Directors was apparently deceived into authorizing the sale of securities by the misrepresentation that the proceeds would be exchanged for a certificate of deposit of equal value. The plaintiff in the case was the liquidator of the corporation. The ultimate beneficiaries of the suit were the corporate creditors.

In reversing the lower courts’ dismissal of the case and holding that the plaintiff had stated a cause of action under Section 10(b), a unanimous Supreme Court stated:

“The Congress made clear that ‘disregard of trust relationships by those whom the law should regard as fiduciaries, are all a single seamless web’ along with manipulation, investor’s ignorance, and the like. H.R.Rep.No. 1383, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 6. Since practices ‘constantly vary and where practices legitimate for some purposes may be turned to illegitimate and fraudulent means, broad discretionary powers’ in the regulatory agency ‘have been found practically essential.’ Id., at 7. Hence we do not read § 10(b) as narrowly as the Court of Appeals; it is not ‘limited to preserving the integrity of the securities markets’ . , though that purpose is included. Section 10(b) must be read flexibly, not technically and restrictively.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Williams v. AMF, INC.
512 F. Supp. 1048 (S.D. Ohio, 1981)
Buffington v. Gillette Co.
101 F.R.D. 400 (W.D. Oklahoma, 1980)
Roesberg v. Johns-Manville Corp.
85 F.R.D. 292 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1980)
McClain v. Mack Trucks, Inc.
85 F.R.D. 53 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1979)
United States v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co.
461 F. Supp. 1314 (District of Columbia, 1978)
Miller v. Doctor's General Hospital
76 F.R.D. 136 (W.D. Oklahoma, 1977)
Hawes v. C. E. Cook & Company
538 F.2d 329 (Sixth Circuit, 1976)
Reeg v. Fetzer
78 F.R.D. 34 (W.D. Oklahoma, 1976)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
64 F.R.D. 22, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 873, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8760, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hawes-v-c-e-cook-co-miwd-1974.