Lewenberg v. Del Regno

14 Mass. L. Rptr. 507
CourtMassachusetts Superior Court
DecidedMarch 6, 2002
DocketNo. 19995681C
StatusPublished

This text of 14 Mass. L. Rptr. 507 (Lewenberg v. Del Regno) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lewenberg v. Del Regno, 14 Mass. L. Rptr. 507 (Mass. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

Lauriat, J.

Peter K. Lewenberg (“Lewenberg”) brought this action for breach of fiduciary duties against Victor R. Del Regno (“Del Regno”), Jack J. Laurendeau (“Laurendeau”), Alan L. Doyon (“Doyon”), and William A. Schwartz (“Schwartz”) (collectively, “the Directors”) for breach of fiduciary duties owed Lewenberg while they served as the Board of Directors of MAl-Alper, Inc. (“Alper”), a corporation in which all parties owned stock. Lewenberg seeks damages that he alleges resulted from the Directors’ failure to provide him with material information they were obligated to disclose with regard to the value of his stock at the time he was leaving Alper. The Directors have now moved for reconsideration of the court’s denial of their motion for summary judgment on all counts. [See 13 Mass. L. Rptr. 736] As the Directors and Lewenberg have submitted additional factual material to the court in conjunction with the Directors’ present motion, the court will treat it as a renewed motion for summary judgment.

BACKGROUND

The following undisputed facts underlie the Directors’ original summary judgment motion. Alper was a local food brokerage business incorporated under Massachusetts law. Alper’s shares were distributed only to key employees, numbering less than fifty individuals. The Directors collectively owned 51% of Alper while Lewenberg, who worked for Alper in various capacities from 1970 until April 1999, owned approximately 3.5%, in the form of 2,600 shares.

The mid-to-late 1990s saw a substantial transformation of the food brokerage industry. Smaller entities, like Alper, tended to consolidate into or affiliate with regional or national brokerage firms. The effect of industry-wide consolidation on Alper’s future was a topic at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in December 1998. With Lewenberg in attendance, the Directors acknowledged that the industry was changing, that some investigation into the possible consequences for Alper had already occurred, and that the Directors would continue to explore new opportunities. The Directors made no further disclosures to Alper’s shareholders on this subject until after Lewenberg announced his plans to leave the company.

During their January 1999 board meeting, the Directors decided to approach large food brokerage firms regarding an affiliation with Alper. On March 31, 1999, the day Lewenberg announced his resignation, the Directors were exploring the possibiliiy of affiliating with Acosta or Advantage, two larger food brokerage firms. A meeting with Acosta took place on April 1, 1999. It did not conclude with an agreement. On April 12, 1999, Acosta presented Alper with a proposal that the Directors found more acceptable. Negotiations continued until April 21, 1999, when Alper’s stockholders accepted an agreement by which Acosta would acquire Alper.

Lewenberg’s resignation on March 31, 1999 triggered a provision in Alper’s Articles of Organization which required him to offer his stock to the corporation for purchase in accordance with a predetermined pricing formula. The company elected to purchase Lewenberg’s stock. Plugging in the pricing formula, Alper paid Lewenberg $80.00 per share for a total of $208,000. [508]*508Following the acquisition by Acosta, all of Alper's shareholders received a payout of $600.00 per share. Thus, Lewenberg’s stock was purchased for over $1,300,000 less than he would have received under the terms of the payout implemented after the Acosta acquisition.

On the basis of these undisputed facts, this Court determined that Alper fell within the definition of a closely held corporation as described in Donahue v. Rodd Electrotype Co. of New England, Inc., 367 Mass. 578 (1975).1 The consequence of this holding was that the fiduciary duty the Directors owed Lewenberg was “substantially the same fiduciary duty in the operations of the enterprise that partners owe to one another . . . [one of) utmost loyalty and good faith.” Id. at 593. While stockholders may not “act out of avarice, expediency or self interest,” id., the duty owed does not obligate the majority to make minute-by-minute disclosures. Thus, even closed corporations “have a large measure of discretion, for example, in declaring or withholding dividends, deciding whether to merge or consolidate, establishing the salaries of corporate officers, dismissing directors with or without cause, and hiring and firing corporate employees.” Wilkes v. Sunnyside Nursing Home, Inc., 370 Mass. 842, 851 (1976).

Having established the nature of the duty that ran to Lewenberg as a stockholder as opposed to an employee, the court turned to the temporal aspect of that duty. Both Lewenberg and the Directors characterized the tender of Lewenberg’s stock as a necessary incident of his resignation. However, Alper’s Articles of Organization, Amendment Schedule A, section 3(b), which is applicable to the transaction, does not support the view that the parties were engaged in an automatic purchase upon resignation procedure. Section 3(b) contemplates various contingencies, ranging from Alper’s refusal to repurchase the stock to its repurchase within fifteen days of written notice. Neither party submitted evidence that allowed the court to determine when Lewenberg ceased to be a stockholder. Therefore, the court denied the Directors’ summary judgment motion on October 23, 2001 [13 Mass. L. Rptr. 736).

Both parties have augmented the factual record since that decision was issued. Once again, they substantially agree on the facts but not on their consequences. On March 31, 1999, the day Lewenberg announced his resignation, he requested, among other things, that he be allowed to retain his Alper shares. During a meeting with Doyon on April 6, 1999, Lewenberg was informed that he would be required to tender his shares on April 23, 1999, his last official work day. Additionally, Lewenberg was asked to deliver the shares to Doyon prior to April 16, 1999, since Lewenberg was leaving for an overseas vacation on that date. Lewenberg complied with these requests and turned over his shares to Doyon prior to April 16, 1999. However, in endorsing them over to Alper, Lewenberg dated each endorsement “April 23, 1999.”

The Directors contend that they are entitled to summary judgment because Lewenberg waived the requirement of written notification regarding his stock transfer and that G.L.c. 106, §8-302(a) mandates the conclusion that Lewenberg’s interest in Alper ended when he gave the endorsed stock certificates to Doyon prior to April 16, 1999. Lewenberg asserts that he never waived the written notice provision and that post-dating his stock endorsements continued his shareholder status to April 23, 1999.

DISCUSSION

I.

The parties agree that the Directors never provided Lewenberg with the written notice required by the company’s Articles of Organization. The Directors contend that the parties’ conduct during the period when Lewenberg was winding up his involvement with Alper constituted a waiver of that condition. Lewenberg counters with the assertion that the company’s purchase of his shares is invalid because the Directors failed to provide written notice.

Typically, the agreed upon provisions of a contract will be enforced. However, conditions in a contract may be waived. Church of God in Christ, Inc. v. Congregation Kehillath Jacob, 370 Mass. 828, 834 (1974). A condition may be waived by a party’s words and conduct. McCarthy v. Tobin, 429 Mass. 84, 88-89 (1999). The construction of a waiver is determined by rules of reasonableness.

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Related

Donahue v. Rodd Electrotype Co. of New England, Inc.
328 N.E.2d 505 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1975)
Wilkes v. Springside Nursing Home, Inc.
353 N.E.2d 657 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1976)
Church of God in Christ, Inc. v. Congregation Kehillath Jacob
353 N.E.2d 669 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1976)
McCarthy v. Tobin
706 N.E.2d 629 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1999)
Lewenberg v. Del Regno
13 Mass. L. Rptr. 736 (Massachusetts Superior Court, 2001)

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Bluebook (online)
14 Mass. L. Rptr. 507, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lewenberg-v-del-regno-masssuperct-2002.