Oldfield v. Alston

77 F.R.D. 735, 26 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1240, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19759
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Georgia
DecidedFebruary 2, 1978
DocketCiv. No. C77-592A
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 77 F.R.D. 735 (Oldfield v. Alston) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Oldfield v. Alston, 77 F.R.D. 735, 26 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1240, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19759 (N.D. Ga. 1978).

Opinion

ORDER

O’KELLEY, District Judge.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

This civil action is brought by plaintiff, Lavada H. Oldfield, derivatively on behalf of defendant, Atlanta National Real Estate Trust [hereinafter “ANRET”] and representatively on behalf of all shareholders of ANRET. The other defendants include individual trustees of ANRET, ANRET’s investment manager, Atlanta National Management Company [hereinafter “Management Co.”], and various corporate defendants, including Charter Medical Corporation [hereinafter “Charter Medical”], Charter Medical Management Company [hereinafter “Charter Management”], Fickling & Walker, Inc. [hereinafter “Fickling & Walker”], and F & W Investments, Inc. [hereinafter “F & W”]. The plaintiff has stated two claims against these defendants. The first alleges that certain individual trustee-defendants, along with the various corporate defendants, have dominated and controlled the remaining trustees in the practices and policies of the trust, causing a diversion and waste of ANRET’s assets in breach of their fiduciary duties to the trust. Second, plaintiff alleges that the defendants violated section 14(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 by disseminating a false and misleading proxy statement to AN-RET’s shareholders in that the proxy statement failed to disclose the actions taken by the trustees in violation of their fiduciary duties. Thus, both claims are predicated on the same alleged misconduct,'which consists of (1) causing ANRET to allow Charter Medical to prepay without penalty a loan from ANRET although the terms of the loan, which were favorable to ANRET, prohibited such prepayment, and (2) causing ANRET to amend the management contract with Management Co. so as to provide a guaranteed minimum compensation of $450,000 per year to Management Co. at a time when defendants knew that Management Co. would be entitled to no compensation under the previous compensation formula. Plaintiff is seeking a judgment compelling the defendants herein to pay to AN-RET their profits and ANRET’s losses, including exemplary damages. Subject matter jurisdiction is invoked under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, because of diversity of citizenship, and upon the princi[738]*738pies of pendent jurisdiction. This action is presently before the court on (1) defendants’ motion to stay further action on all pending motions until the court determines whether the plaintiff has stated a valid claim under section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and whether the court has subject matter jurisdiction over all other claims herein; (2) plaintiff’s motion for leave to file an amended complaint pursuant to rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; (3) on defendants’ motion to dismiss for failure to comply with rule 23.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and for failure to state a claim under section 14(a); (4) on the motion of defendant Fickling & Walker to dismiss the complaint against it; (5) on the motion of defendant Charter Management to dismiss the complaint against it; (6) on the motion of defendant ANRET to require the plaintiff to deposit security for expenses herein; and (7) on plaintiff’s motion to examine ANRET’s list of shareholders. Each of these motions will be considered seriatim.

I.

Defendants’ motion for an order staying further action on all pending motions herein until the court determines whether the plaintiff has stated a valid claim under section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and whether the court has subject matter jurisdiction over all other claims has not yet been submitted to the court by the clerk. However, by letter dated January 30, 1978, counsel for defendants has informed the court that should the court rule against defendants on the securities and jurisdictional issues in the case sub judice, such a stay is necessary in order to allow certain defendants to obtain separate counsel because of potential conflicts of interest between various defendants. In the court’s view, however, the existence of potential conflicts of interest has been known, or should have been known, to the defendants and their counsel long ago. Moreover, although defendants are requesting a stay until all jurisdictional issues are resolved, defendants have not yet filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Finally, the court notes that a draft of this order with respect to all pending motions has now been prepared and substantially ready for entry for two months. The court has delayed entering it only because of its generosity in granting defendants’ repeated requests for extensions of time. In view of the amount of time and effort this court has given to a careful consideration of the merits of the pending motions herein, defendants’ current request for a stay reflects a complete disregard for the burdens placed upon the judicial manpower by the heavy caseload in the Northern District of Georgia. Accordingly, because the court’s ruling herein on the securities issue is not adverse to defendants, the court concludes that further delay with respect to the motions which have now been pending for many months is not in the best interests of justice and judicial economy. For the above reasons, defendants’ motion for a stay is hereby denied.

II.

If allowed, plaintiff’s amended complaint would not alter the principal claims. Among others, the proposed changes therein include (1) clarifications in the jurisdictional allegations; (2) a correction in paragraph 9 to indicate that both Charter Medical and Charter Management are among those defendants who allegedly dominate ANRET’s trustees and the practices and policies of ANRET; (3) additional statements alleging that the actions of ANRET’s trustees in causing ANRET to permit Charter Medical to prepay the loan and in amending the management contract to provide a guaranteed minimum income to Management Co. were pursuant to a conspiracy with the other defendants and that the false and misleading proxy statement was also issued pursuant to this conspiracy; (4) additional statements alleging that all the defendants acted with knowledge that the transactions attacked in the complaint were wrongful or acted in reckless or grossly negligent disregard of the rights and interests of ANRET and its shareholders; (5) additional statements which further par[739]*739ticularize the reasons why demand upon ANRET’s trustees and shareholders would be futile.

Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that leave to amend pleadings “shall be freely given when justice so requires.” The United States Supreme Court has construed this to mean that “[i]n the absence of any apparent or declared reason — such as undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant . . . undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment . the leave should, as the rules require, be ‘freely given.’” Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 83 S.Ct. 227, 9 L.Ed.2d 222 (1962). After careful consideration of the history of this action and its complexity, the court finds that the record is free from evidence of bad faith or dilatory motives on the part of the plaintiff.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
77 F.R.D. 735, 26 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1240, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19759, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oldfield-v-alston-gand-1978.