Petr Bocek v. JGA Associates, LLC

537 F. App'x 169
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedAugust 1, 2013
Docket12-1590
StatusUnpublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 537 F. App'x 169 (Petr Bocek v. JGA Associates, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Petr Bocek v. JGA Associates, LLC, 537 F. App'x 169 (4th Cir. 2013).

Opinions

TRAXLER, Chief Judge:

Petr Bocek brought this action against business consultant Joseph Amato and two companies associated with Amato after the defendants purchased a medical practice for themselves rather than for Bocek. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, and Bocek appeals. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

I.

Plaintiff Petr Bocek is a medical doctor specializing in the treatment of allergies. Defendant Joseph Amato is the manager and sole member of defendant JGA Associates, LLC, a business consulting firm.

Bocek contacted Amato seeking assistance with the formation and financing of a new allergy care medical practice. On November 10, 2010, the parties entered into a contract (the “Consulting Agreement”) through which JGA agreed “to review and report on the feasibility of the proposed allergy medicine practice and prepare a business proposal for funding a start-up medical practice” and “render such other services as may be agreed upon by the Client and the Consultant.” J.A. 64. Under the terms of the Agreement, JGA would be compensated through “development fees” (hourly billing for consulting services) and a “completion fee” of two percent of the face amount of any business loan arranged by JGA.

A few days after signing the Consulting Agreement, Bocek asked Amato about the feasibility of buying an existing medical practice rather than starting a new practice. Bocek told Amato that Allergy Care Centers (“ACC”), where Bocek had previously worked, was being offered for sale by the administrator of the estate (the “Estate”) of ACC’s owner, who had died two years earlier. Amato responded positively, explaining that “[t]he acquisition of [171]*171an existing operating practice is always more attractive if the price and the historic financial performance make sense.” J.A. 68. After Bocek raised the possibility of buying ACC, there were no further discussions about Bocek starting a new practice; the relationship between Bocek and Amato focused exclusively on acquiring ACC’s assets.

Bocek told Amato that his acquisition of ACC might be complicated because he had been fired from ACC and was in the process of negotiating a severance package, and Bocek asked Amato to pursue the purchase of ACC without revealing Bocek’s identity as the buyer. To keep Bocek’s name out of the negotiations, Amato and Bocek ultimately settled on a “straw purchase” approach by which JGA (or an alternate holding company set up by Amato) would buy ACC and transfer it to Bocek after closing.

Emails show that by the end of December 2010, the parties were in general agreement on the overall structure and ultimate goal of the deal — ownership of the practice by Bocek — and what needed to be done to move forward with the transaction. There was, however, no agreement as to the structure or mechanics of the transfer from JGA to Bocek. For example, in a December 23 email, Amato told Bocek that while there were still open issues, Amato “intend[ed] to move forward” with the purchase of ACC “based on a few specific parameters,” including:

1. That our firm (or an alternate holding company) intends to initially purchase the practice with the direct intention of selling the practice (or the holding company) to you.
2. That you will commit to work with our firm during the due diligence process with the sole intention of becoming the eventual owner of ACC. The timing of the change in ownership would be automatic and agreed to by our firm and yourself before we execute the Purchase Agreement. The transfer of ownership to you will depend on your ability to fund the purchase of the practice from our firm and how quickly “we” are able to secure third-party financing for you to buy the practice from our firm; or if third-party financing is not immediately available, our firm would hold a seller-held note until such time that conventional funding can take out our note. The bottom line is that we would intend on transferring ownership to you as soon as all parties agree we can, that is after our firm’s purchase of the practice from the estate.
4. That you commit to buying the practice and/or running the practice (as owner or lead physician, your choice) under contract with the new company as a condition of us purchasing ACC. There may be a reason you do not want to own the practice immediately after our purchase of the firm; if so, we need to understand specifically what you want and we need to be sure that if we purchase the practice, day one you will be the company’s lead physician (either as the owner or key employee). You will need to understand that we will not go through with the purchase of ACC if you are not a direct part of our exit strategy.

J.A. 75. An email sent by Amato a few days later, after Bocek had passed along questions from his attorney about the purchase, reconfirmed the basic plan:

We are not purchasing the business on the behalf of an undisclosed purchaser; JGA “is” purchasing the business. Our intentions with the business after the deal is consummated will not be a concern for the Seller; we will be sure that nothing precludes us from selling the business once we have purchased [172]*172[it].... But please understand our only intention once we own the business would be to sell the business to you; and as I said before I do not think the estate could care less.

J.A. 81 (emphasis added).

On January 22, 2011, Amato sent Bocek an invoice for his services. The invoice reflected Bocek’s prior payment of $3,800 and sought an additional $4,574.40 “for expanded hours and third-party costs associated with the project development and acquisition negotiations for the purchase of the Allergy Care Center business operation on behalf of JGA Associates and Dr. Petr Bocek.” J.A. 1048.

On February 3, Amato sent the Estate a Letter of Intent (“LOI”) through which “JGA Associates, LLC, or its assigns” offered to purchase ACC’s assets for $1,000,000. J.A. 102. The LOI obligated the parties to negotiate in good faith, but the LOI was otherwise not binding; until the execution of a mutually agreeable asset purchase agreement, either side could walk away from the transaction without penalty. The Estate accepted the offer and returned an executed copy of the LOI to Amato late in the afternoon on February 8, 2011.

Earlier that same day (February 8), Amato had visited one of the ACC offices to meet with Margaret Crook, ACC’s practice manager. During the meeting, Crook told Amato that Bocek had been fired after he sexually harassed employees and used another doctor’s prescription pad to forge prescriptions for himself. This was the first Amato had heard of these issues; Bocek had told Amato that he had been fired, but he never provided any details about what happened, and Amato never asked. After meeting with Crook, Amato stalled and put off Bocek’s various inquiries until he could verify what he had learned.

On February 15, the Estate filed a petition in a Pennsylvania “Orphan’s Court” seeking approval for the sale of ACC. Bocek was then unaware that the sale was moving forward — Amato had not informed Bocek that he submitted the LOI to the Estate on February 3 or that the LOI had been accepted.

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Related

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995 F. Supp. 2d 548 (E.D. Virginia, 2014)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
537 F. App'x 169, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/petr-bocek-v-jga-associates-llc-ca4-2013.