In re Bexar County Health Facility Development Corp. Securities Litigation

130 F.R.D. 602, 1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4108, 1990 WL 51534
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 10, 1990
DocketMDL No. 768
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 130 F.R.D. 602 (In re Bexar County Health Facility Development Corp. Securities Litigation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Bexar County Health Facility Development Corp. Securities Litigation, 130 F.R.D. 602, 1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4108, 1990 WL 51534 (E.D. Pa. 1990).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

BECHTLE, Chief Judge.

Presently before the court are defendants’ motions for reconsideration of the court’s prior order granting in part plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, and defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint. For the reasons set forth herein, defendants’ motions will be granted.

I. BACKGROUND

In In re Bexar County Health Facility Development Corporation Securities Litigation, 125 F.R.D. 625 (E.D.Pa.1989) (''Bexar I”) this court granted plaintiffs’ motion for class certification solely on the issue of whether an official statement offering revenue bonds to the public violated § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. § 78j, and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, 17 C.F.R. § 240.10b-5.1 The court defined the class as:

All persons who were original purchasers of the Bexar County Health Facilities Development Corporation First Mortgage Revenue Bonds (Trinity Retirement Living Foundation Project) Series 1984, excluding only the defendants.

The terms of the financing are set forth in that Memorandum and Order and need not bear repeating except for one relevant correction discussed below.

The gravamen of plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that purchasers of the Trinity revenue bonds were defrauded because a financial feasibility study prepared by the accounting firm of Laventhol & Horwath and included in the offering statement did not disclose the failure of two prior bond offerings which financed similar health care facilities. AmeriCare Corporation was the developer on all three projects and Laventhol & Horwath had prepared a feasibility study for one of the prior offerings. However, in the prior Memorandum, the court mistakenly identified Miller & Schroeder, Inc. as the primary underwriter and Kutak, Rock & Campbell as bond counsel on all three financings. The parties agree that this was incorrect. In fact, the involvement of Miller & Schroeder and Kutak, Rock & Campbell was limited to the Trinity project.

Based on this correction of fact, defendant Kutak, Rock & Campbell moves the court to reconsider its order denying without prejudice their motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ claim alleging aider and abettor liability. Furthermore, all defendants seek reconsideration of the court’s class certification order, or, in the alternative, redefinition of the class. Finally, all defendants seek reconsideration of the court’s order denying their motion to dismiss plaintiff's complaint as untimely.

II. DISCUSSION

The issues on reconsideration of the court’s order granting class certification are the application of the “fraud-created-the-market” doctrine to newly issued municipal revenue bonds and the taxonomy of reliance in Rule 10b-5 cases involving both misrepresentations and omissions. The pri- or Memorandum attempted to confine the inquiry to traditional class action analysis, but recent legal developments in the securities field have persuaded the court to revisit these troublesome questions.

[605]*605 1. Fraud on the Market

In order to establish a prima facie case of securities fraud under Rule 10b-5 a plaintiff must plead and prove (1) a misstatement or omission (2) of material fact (3) made with scienter (4) on which plaintiff reasonably relied, and (5) which was the proximate cause of an economic loss. Peil v. Speiser, 806 F.2d 1154, 1160 (3d Cir. 1986). Reliance has steadfastly remained an essential element of a Rule 10b-5 case. Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224, 108 S.Ct. 978, 989, 99 L.Ed.2d 194 (1988), citing, Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U.S. 185, 96 S.Ct. 1375, 47 L.Ed.2d 668 (1976). However, the impracticability of proving direct reliance in modern securities transactions has spawned certain doctrines which dispense with its harsh requirement. Instead, courts have focused on the causation aspect of reliance to ensure that liberalization does not lead to the severing of the causal chain between a defendant’s alleged fraud and a plaintiff’s subsequent loss. The evolution of these theories is, if nothing else, a testament to the ingenuity of the common law.

The problem begins when the representative class plaintiffs, such as the four presented in this case, fail to read the document which contained the alleged fraud, thereby negating any claim of actual reliance on the misrepresentation or omission.2 A plaintiff’s inevitable response is that he relied on some mechanism, usually the “market”, which absorbed and incorporated the fraudulent information into the price of the security-be it trading value of a stock, the yield and redemption provisions of a bond or other terms and conditions of an investment. This situation is described as a “fraud-on-the-market”, as opposed to the individual investor.

The Supreme Court first relaxed the burden of proof on reliance in Affiliated Ute Citizens v. United States, 406 U.S. 128, 92 S.Ct. 1456, 31 L.Ed.2d 741 (1972). In Affiliated Ute, the Ute Indian tribe formed the Ute Development Corporation (UDC) to manage a trust composed of tribal assets which was created pursuant to the termination of federal supervision over the Ute reservation. Transfer of UDC shares issued to mixed-bloods was restricted, with tribal members receiving a right of first refusal. In addition, UDC shares could not be sold to nonmembers at a price lower than that offered to members of the tribe. The complaint alleged that two white employees of a bank, acting as stock transfer agent, defrauded the mixed-bloods by purchasing shares and arranging sales to other whites at prices substantially below the actual $1,500 per share value, while assuring the members that they were receiving fair consideration.

The Supreme Court found that the Ute’s complaint stated a violation of Rule 10b-5 despite the lack of affirmative proof of plaintiffs’ reliance on the defendants fraudulent representations as to the stock’s value. In language which became the linchpin in the moderation of the reliance requirement, Justice Blackmun wrote that:

Under the circumstances of this case, involving primarily a failure to disclose, positive proof of reliance is not a prerequisite to recovery. All that is necessary is that the facts withheld be material in the sense that a reasonable investor might have considered them important in the making of this decision ... This obligation to disclose and this withholding of a material fact establish the requisite element of causation in fact.

[606]*606406 U.S. at 153-54, 92 S.Ct. at 1472 (citations omitted). This substitution of materiality for the traditional tort concept of direct reliance was extended to open market transactions in Blackie v. Barrack, 524 F.2d 891 (9th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 816, 97 S.Ct. 57, 50 L.Ed.2d 75 (1976), and was adopted by the Third Circuit in Peil v.

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Bluebook (online)
130 F.R.D. 602, 1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4108, 1990 WL 51534, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-bexar-county-health-facility-development-corp-securities-litigation-paed-1990.