Reserve Life Insurance v. Pitfield Mackay & Co.

528 F.2d 120
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 16, 1976
DocketNos. 75-1876, 75-1877
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 528 F.2d 120 (Reserve Life Insurance v. Pitfield Mackay & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reserve Life Insurance v. Pitfield Mackay & Co., 528 F.2d 120 (8th Cir. 1976).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

This matter is before us for a second time upon an appeal by Reserve Life Insurance Company and Midland National Life Insurance Company, who contend that the district court has failed to follow our prior mandate which followed our opinion reported as Reserve Life Ins. Co. v. Provident Life Ins. Co., 499 F.2d 715, cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1107, 95 S.Ct. 778, 42 L.Ed.2d 803 (1975). In addition, Pitfield Mackay & Company and others who now hold recently acquired shareholder interests in Provident Life Insurance Company appeal from an order of the district court denying them intervention in the proceedings pending on remand before the district court.

Appellees, trustees of the Provident Life Insurance Company Voting Trust, have moved to dismiss the appeal pursuant to local rule 9 on grounds that the appeal is frivolous or that we are without jurisdiction since the contested orders are not final or otherwise appealable.

We reach the merits of the issues presented on appeal and affirm the order issued by the district court, Judge Ronald N. Davies, but direct its modification in minor particulars.

I.

A brief review of proceedings and of our opinion in the earlier case will give these proceedings a proper frame of reference.

In this lawsuit, Reserve and Midland seek to overturn a voting trust established in 1955 by Provident Life Insurance Company, a North Dakota life insurance company, to thwart efforts of outside interests to obtain control of Provident. The first trust extended for 15 years to 1970. Prior to its expiration the trustees obtained consents from 42.44 percent of the owners of Provident stock to extend the trust for 10 years to November 14, 1980. Nonconsenting certificate holders regained their underlying shares. Reserve and Midland, as part of a takeover plan, obtained a substantial stock interest through purchase of voting trust certificates. Those purchased prior to the extension agreement were converted into stock when the initial trust expired. Those purchased after the extension but before the prior decision of this court were converted to stock pursuant to our mandate.

As shareholders in this litigation, Reserve and Midland have sought to invalidate the actions of the trustees and Provident by which the voting trust was extended to 1980. This effort failed in the district court but was partially successful on appeal. 499 F.2d 715. Provident and the trustees petitioned the Su-Ipreme Court for certiorari. Reserve and Midland filed a cross-petition conditioned upon success by Provident and the trustees. All petitions were denied. 419 U.S. at 1107, 95 S.Ct. 778. Our mandate was filed on January 7, 1975.

In our prior decision we held that the extension of the voting trust in this case amounted to solicitations of proxies and such conduct came within the strictures of the proxy rules as promulgated by the SEC. See Rule 14a-l et seq., 17 C.F.R., § 240.14a-l et seq. [Id. at 725.]

In our opinion we observed that

[h]ere, however, Provident’s management and the trustees refused to furnish to Reserve and Midland the names of stockholders, except on order of the North Dakota court, and, successfully resisted the efforts of appellants to obtain a list of the names and addresses of the certificate holders of the voting trust. As a result of this, Reserve and Midland were effectively precluded from an equal opportunity to communicate with the participants of the trust, contrary to the purpose intended by the Commission’s proxy rules and § 14(a). [Id. at 726.]

[122]*122We applied equitable principles. to fashion a remedy for the foregoing violation. We permitted Reserve and Midland to obtain voting shares for the voting trust certificates which they had obtained by assignment prior to our judgment but, recognizing that members of the voting trust might very well wish to continue efforts to provide a common front against takeover attempts, we said:

The trial court may take cognizance of this continued effort by shareholders of Provident to present a common front against plaintiffs’ efforts to take over their company. Thus, in the exercise of its equitable discretion, the trial court may give Provident and the trustees an opportunity to reaffirm the voting trust with the present certificate holders, other than Reserve and Midland, subject, however, to the requirements of Rule 14a — 1 et seq. [Id. at 727 (emphasis added).]

In our remand we provided:

Accordingly, we remand this case for the entry of a judgment in conformity with this opinion. Should Provident and the trustees seek permission to attempt to obtain reaffirmance of the voting trust with its certificate holders, the district court shall pass on such application and if approved shall enter such orders as may be appropriate to assure that full, fair, and complete disclosure of information is afforded all voting certificate holders by the appellees as well as by appellants. The trial court should issue such other orders as will protect the rights of all parties and retain the status quo of the voting trust, except with respect to the extended voting trust certificates heretofore acquired by Reserve and Midland, pending any resolicitation. As to voting trust certificates obtained by Reserve and Midland prior to the filing of this opinion, Provident will be required to exchange them for the underlying common stock represented by these certificates. [Id. at 727.]

We issued our opinion June 21, 1974. Because of intervening proceedings (petitions for rehearing by both parties and an application by appellees for certiorari) there has been substantial delay in the implementation of our mandate. The status quo of June 21, 1974 has been altered by market transactions in which shareholders have sold their stock represented by trust certificates to third parties such as Pitfield Mackay, who seek to intervene in this action.

The district court acted on our remand and motions for intervention on October 7, 1975, and entered an order which permitted the trustees of the voting trust and Reserve Life and Midland to communicate with holders, as of June 21, 1974, of voting trust certificates. The communications were to be subject to the court’s approval as well as that of the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance with § 14(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. The court’s order further provided “that such holders [of voting trust certificates are given] 45 days in which to avoid the terms of the Extended Voting Trust by surrendering their certificates to the transfer agent to be exchanged forthwith for the underlying shares of common stock of Provident Life Insurance Company.”

The order of October 7, 1975 also denied the intervention petitions. The proposed intervenors as holders of voting trust certificates acquired subsequent to June 21, 1974, claim a right to elect not to continue their shares within the voting trust.

The appellants and proposed intervenors contend that limiting the solicitation to those persons holding certificates as of June 21, 1974, and providing for certificate holders to indicate disaffirmance by mailing in their trust certificates violates the mandate which speaks of affirmance rather than disaffirmance and that the procedure insures that transferees of certificates acquired subsequent to June 21, 1974, will have their shares locked into the trust.

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