In Re New York, N. H. & H. R. Co.

54 F. Supp. 595, 1943 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1734
CourtDistrict Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedDecember 21, 1943
Docket16562
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 54 F. Supp. 595 (In Re New York, N. H. & H. R. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 54 F. Supp. 595, 1943 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1734 (D. Conn. 1943).

Opinion

HINCKS, District Judge.

The New Capital Structure and the Stock Equities.

In this plan, like that previously certified to the court, the Interstate Commerce Commission proposes that the total capitalization of the New Haven shall be fixed at $365,000,000. The plan, however, contemplates that the capital structure may be expended to include the new securities required to fill out the purchase price of the Old Colony and the Boston & Providence. It is not disputed that the claims of creditors, secured and unsecured, amount in the aggregate to upwards of $378,000,000. It follows that if the capitalization proposed be approved, the equity of existing stockholders, preferred ($49,036,700) and common ($157,118,600), is without value. And the Commission has so found.

The cases of Ecker v. Western Pacific R. Corp., 318 U.S. 448, 63 S.Ct. 692, and Institutional Investors v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. P. & P. R. Co., 318 U.S. 523, 63 S.Ct. 727, hold that under Section 77, Bankr.Act, 11 U.S.C.A. § 205, it is the function of the Commission, not of the court, to fix the total capitalization of the reorganized railroad and to make all determinations of value upon which the new capitalization must depend. In so doing the Commission need state only its ultimate conclusion: “To require it to go further and formalize in findings the numerous data on which it relied in the exercise of its expert, informed judgment would be to alter the statutory scheme.” Milwaukee case, 318 U.S. at page 539, 63 S.Ct. at page 737. The task of the court is not to reexamine the Commission’s finding of fact but merely to make sure that it is supported by “material evidence”, and is “in accordance with legal standards.” Western Pacific case, 318 U.S. at page 473, 63 S.Ct. at page 707. And the requirement of the Act that stockholders shall be excluded only if the Commission’s finding that the stock is without value shall be “affirmed” by the judge, means not that “an independent appraisal of the valuation which ordained their elimination” is required of the judge but only that he shall make an independent examination to ascertain whether there is “legal objection to the Commission’s use of its own valuation to determine whether particular claimants are entitled to participate” as, for example, when the priority or validity of claims are in controversy. Western Pacific case, 318 U.S. at page 479, 63 S.Ct. at page 710.

I turn, therefore, to consider, first, whether the Commission’s finding is in accordance with legal standards.

I suppose the “legal standards” within the purview of independent examination by the judge include the methods of procedure used by the Commission in the development of the plan which it has proposed. But there are here no objections to the proposed capitalization based upon procedural grounds. Nor can I detect at any stage of the proceedings before the Commission any deviation from the procedural requirements of the Act. In successive hearings those now objecting were given full opportunity to present evidence and to be heard. I find no violation of any legal standard of procedure.

Nor does it appear that the Commission’s conclusion conflicts with any legal standard in the field of the substantive law. The Supreme Court cases cited make it abundantly plain that for purposes of fixing the capitalization of a reorganized railroad, its earning power is' the dominant factor. And the Commission states (pg. 9767) 1 that it has indeed taken, into account “past and present earnings and prospects for the future.”

*601 ' To be sure the Commission also states that its conclusion was reached after “taking into account * * * other pertinent factors discussed” in its several' successive reports (pg. 9767) 2 and “the improved cash position of the debtor’s estate and the reductions in secured obligations” (pg. 10,-131). Doubtless this reference .included the physical valuation of the debtor’s estate (except for its rights in the New York and Harlem) and of the debtor’s capitalizable assets which indeed received discussion in the Commission’s reports (pgs. 7930 et seq., 9762). But the reports of the Commission give no more clue as to whether its ultimate finding of value — $365,000,-000 for the entire system minus Old Colony and Boston & Providence — was based solely on the earnings factor or whether the effect of the earnings factor was somewhat modified by the impact of what the Commission called “other pertinent factors.”

But this inherent uncertainty as to the precise factors upon which the ultimate finding was based is not fatal. I construe neither the Act nor the Supreme Court cases expounding the Act to mean that factors other than earnings may not lawfully be used to modify the conclusion which would be based solely on a consideration of earnings. The Commission pointed out (pg. 9765) that earnings (a term which I here use as shorthand for income available for fixed charges) for the “prospective year” (meaning average earnings as estimated in 1937 for the next five years (Exhibits 16-17)), that the average earnings in the period 1927-1938, and that the average earnings in the period 1927-1941, all if capitalized at 5% would produce a total less than $365,000,000, — the figure which earnings of $18,250,000 if similarly capitalized would produce. If the Commission concluded that, for the future, average earnings as great as $18,250,000 could not reasonably be expected, but revised upward the result indicated by a lower level of earnings to reflect the greater value of the estate on the basis of a physical valuation, the modification was in a direction favorable to present stockholders and leaves them no ground to complain that they were injured by the application of an illegal standard or method of valuation. If, instead, the Commission found (although it does not say so) that future earnings might reasonably be expected at the rate of $18,250,000 annually, the capitalization proposed was consistent with a valuation based solely on earnings in strict conformity to the policy approved in the Supreme Court cases cited. And the report of the Commission contains no finding that earnings in excess of $18,250,000 might be expected for the indefinite future. Thus whether the capitalization was based upon earnings alone, or whether a result based on earnings was modified by “other pertinent factors”, the contention that the stockholders were prejudiced by a failure to comply with legal standards is not substantiated.

On analysis, the objections interposed will be seen to attack not so much the legal standard of the valuation as the exercise of the fact-finding function whereby the tendencies of a multitude of subordinate facts are assembled, correlated, weighed, and eventually merged and translated into the ultimate conclusion as to what total amount of securities consistently with the public interest the reorganized enterprise may properly be left to support. But as observed above, under the Supreme Court decisions this is a function confided exclusively to the Commission. In the field of fact, the only function of the court is to ascertain whether there is “material evidence” to support the Commission’s conclusion. I address myself now to that limited task.

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Bluebook (online)
54 F. Supp. 595, 1943 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1734, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-new-york-n-h-h-r-co-ctd-1943.