MOZES ON BEHALF OF GENERAL ELEC. CO. v. Welch

638 F. Supp. 215, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23661
CourtDistrict Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedJune 26, 1986
DocketCiv. No. B-85-635(WWE). MDL No. 654(WWE)
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 638 F. Supp. 215 (MOZES ON BEHALF OF GENERAL ELEC. CO. v. Welch) 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
MOZES ON BEHALF OF GENERAL ELEC. CO. v. Welch, 638 F. Supp. 215, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23661 (D. Conn. 1986).

Opinion

RULING ON MOTION TO DISMISS

EGINTON, District Judge.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

This shareholder’s derivative action follows the indictment and guilty plea of General Electric Corporation (“G.E.”) to submitting to the United States Government approximately $800,000 in incorrect time and labor charges. 1

In December of 1978 the Re-Entry Systems division of G.E. was awarded contracts by the Department of the Air Force for the production and delivery of re-entry vehicles for Minuteman missiles. Approximately seven years later, on March 26, 1985 G.E. and two of its former employees were indicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on charges arising out of those contracts. The indictment charged G.E. and the two former employees with 104 counts of making false statements to the Air Force and Defense Contract Audit Agency, and four counts of presenting false labor claims to the United States government. G.E. subsequently pled guilty to all counts against it.

Three days after G.E.’s indictment, on March 29, 1985, plaintiff’s counsel wrote a demand letter to G.E.’s Board of Directors requesting that it take legal action against “those persons responsible for making, presenting and supervising false labor-cost claims to the government and making false statements to the Air Force and the Defense Contract Audit Agency.” Additionally, the letter indicated that “legal action should be taken against the members of G.E.’s Audit Committee, including directors, for grossly negligently or purposely permitting such illegal acts.”

On April 9, 1985 the general counsel for G.E., Walter A. Schlotterbeck, responded that the matter would be considered at a meeting of the G.E. Board, which meeting was to be held on April 23. On April 26 Schlotterbeck notified plaintiff’s counsel that the Board had appointed a Special Litigation Committee to consider what legal action, if any, should be taken. He also informed plaintiff’s counsel that he would notify him when the Special Litigation Committee had made its recommendation to the Board and the Board had acted thereon.

On May 21, following the guilty pleas entered by G.E., plaintiff’s counsel wrote and asked for a “good-faith estimate of when the Special Litigation Committee would arrive at its recommendation.” On May 29 Schlotterbeck responded by informing counsel that the Special Litigation Committee had retained the law firm of Shear-man and Sterling as independent counsel and that although he was unable at that time to give an estimate of the date by which the Committee would report to the Board, as soon as independent counsel “ha[d] a better grasp of the scope of the problem and might be able to arrive at a time frame,” plaintiff’s counsel would be so advised.

On June 17 the plaintiff filed a shareholder’s derivative action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against the same present defendants, which complaint consisted of allegations substantially the same as those in the present action. On November 19 plaintiff voluntarily discontinued the suit in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The present lawsuit was instituted on November 22,1985 and is considered a part of the multi-district litigation entitled In re *218 General Electric Securities Litigation, Civil No. MDL-654(WWE).

On January 8, 1986 the defendants moved to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (a) for failure to comply with Rule 23.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and (b) for failure to present a justiciable controversy and (c) as to the outside director defendants pursuant to Rule 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction. The plaintiff resists the motion and in response asserts; (a) that it is permissible for the plaintiff to make a demand and later claim that the demand has proven futile; (b) that any further demand is futile in the present case because the Board has failed to provide a definitive response to plaintiff's initial demand, although it had a reasonable time in which to do so; (c) that the claim for damages is timely and (d) that the court has jurisdiction over all G.E. directors. 2

DISCUSSION

The court finds that the most significant basis of the defendants’ motion to dismiss is the claimed failure on the part of the plaintiff to comply with Fed.R.Civ.P. 23.1, which rule states in pertinent part:

In a derivative action brought by one or more shareholders or members to enforce a right of a corporation or of an unincorporated association the corporation or association having failed to enforce a right which may properly be asserted by it, the complaint shall ... allege with particularity the efforts, if any, made by the plaintiff to obtain the action he desires from the directors or comparable authority and, if necessary, from the shareholders or members, and the reasons for his failure to obtain the action or for not making the effort.

Although there is some authority to support the proposition that a plaintiff who makes a demand thereby waives any argument that demand is futile, see Stotland v. GAF, 469 A.2d 421 (Del.1983), the court will examine the plaintiff's claim of futility.

The policy underlying the demand requirement of Rule 23.1 is “to give the derivative corporation itself the opportunity to take over a suit which was brought on its behalf in the first place, and thus to allow the directors the chance to occupy their normal status as conductors of the corporation’s affairs.” Brody v. Chemical Bank, 517 F.2d 932, 934 (2d Cir.1975). See also, Siegal v. Merrick, 84 F.R.D. 106 (S.D.N.Y.1979). Indeed, since the seminal case of Hawes v. Oakland, 104 (14 Otto) U.S. 450, 26 L.Ed. 827 (1881) it has been well established that “before the shareholder is permitted in his own name to institute and conduct a litigation which usually belongs to the corporation, he should show to the satisfaction of the court that he has exhausted all the means within his reach to obtain, within the corporation itself, the redress of his grievances, or action in conformity with his wishes.” Id. 104 U.S. at 460-461. In other words, forcing shareholders to exhaust intracorporate remedies by making demand on directors allows the directors a chance to occupy their proper position as managers of the corporation's business, giving the corporation an opportunity to take control of a suit that will be brought on its behalf. In view of this principle, “[t]he federal courts should not interfere ... nor should they sanction the interference by shareholders with the duties of the board of directors unless it is clear that the board has no intention of taking the appropriate action itself.” Brooks v. American Export Industries, Inc., 68 F.R.D.

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Bluebook (online)
638 F. Supp. 215, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23661, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mozes-on-behalf-of-general-elec-co-v-welch-ctd-1986.