Wholey v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.

700 So. 2d 291, 1997 Miss. LEXIS 300, 1997 WL 413676
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 24, 1997
DocketNo. 95-CA-01091-SCT
StatusPublished

This text of 700 So. 2d 291 (Wholey v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wholey v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., 700 So. 2d 291, 1997 Miss. LEXIS 300, 1997 WL 413676 (Mich. 1997).

Opinion

PRATHER, Presiding Justice,

for the Court:

I.INTRODUCTION

¶ 1. The present ease calls upon this Court to review the ruling of a Chancellor, following a trial on the merits, in which the Chancellor denied an equitable accounting to two limited partners allegedly defrauded by a corporation with which their limited partnership had contracted. This Court concludes that the Chancellor’s ruling was supported by substantial evidence and was not manifestly in error. We accordingly affirm.

II.STATEMENT OF THE FACTS AND CASE

¶2. On June 11, 1973, National Farming Program 1973 (NFP ’73) was organized under Mississippi law for the purpose of engaging in a farming business involving the production and sale of shell eggs from partnership owned flocks of hens. Each unit of the partnership sold for $ 1,000, and at least 380 investors purchased units in NFP ’73 and became limited partners in the partnership. Two of those investors are the appellants in the present case: Dr. Wholey and John Rodgers, who each invested $ 5,000. A prospectus was developed for use in conjunction with the public sale of partnership units, and the partnership agreement was included within the prospectus.

¶ 3. NFP ’73 invested its capital in flocks of egg laying hens. These flocks were managed by Cal-Maine Eggs (CM Eggs), which corporation served as the general partner of the partnership. CM Eggs is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.(CM Foods) and the two companies share the same board of directors. NFP ’73 purchased all of its feed, hens, and medicine from CM companies and sold all their eggs and old hens back to CM companies.

¶ 4. For its services, CM Eggs was paid a management fee of one and a half cents per each dozen eggs produced. This fee was fully disclosed in the prospectus, and the appellants do not contest said fee. The prospectus also represented that each sale or purchase was to be made with either an appraisal or at a price comparable to sales or purchases with unaffiliated third parties. The prospectus further provided that CM Foods would annually report to NFP ’73 the details of any arrangement with CM companies of a fee or profit computed on the basis of dozens of eggs produced.

¶ 5. Wholey complains that these promises in the prospectus were not honored in that no appraisals were ever made, in that CM paid NFP ’73 less for eggs than it paid unaffiliated parties, and in that CM Foods never reported that a fee or profit of one half cent to one cent for every dozen eggs was paid to CM Foods (in addition to the one and a half cent per dozen eggs management fee permitted in the prospectus). NFP ceased to exist on December 31, 1978, subject to wind up, and none of the limited partners received any return on their investments.

¶ 6. On April 2, 1986 Wholey and Rodgers sued CM Eggs and CM Foods for an accounting of undisclosed profits and for the repayment of said profits through the imposition of a constructive trust. The Chancellor dismissed the case based upon the supposed running of the 6 year statute of limitations applicable to fraud, and the plaintiffs appealed to this Court. This Court reversed and remanded, holding that the cause of action was in the nature of a complaint for an accounting and for a constructive trust and that the ten year statute of limitations in § 15-1-39 should properly apply. On remand, the Chancellor dismissed all claims for recovery on behalf of any limited partners other than the two named plaintiffs, Wholey and Rodgers. The cases were tried on February 21-23, 1995, and the Chancellor dismissed the remaining claims of Wholey and Rodgers on September 20, 1995. Wholey and Rodgers once again filed an appeal to this Court.

III.LAW

A. Should this Court permit a compensated fiduciary, under the laws of the State of Mississippi, to avoid the consequences of its willful violation of equita[293]*293ble principles and statutory provisions which prohibit a fiduciary from secretly profiting at the expense of the cestui que trust by the artifice of giving advance general notice to the effect that conflicts of interest may arise and profits may be made by the fiduciary in the performance of its fiduciary duties ?

¶ 7. The present appeal by Wholey and Rodgers arises from an adverse judgment by the Chancellor sitting as the trier of fact following a trial on the merits. This trial followed a remand by this Court with regard to the issue of whether or not the limited partners were entitled to an equitable accounting for “secret profits” allegedly made by CM Foods during the course of the limited partnership. Wholey v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., 530 So.2d 136, 140 (Miss.1988). The Chancellor ruled that Wholey and Rodgers were not entitled to such an accounting, and, given that there is no indication that the Chancellor employed an incorrect legal standard, this Court is limited in its scope of review to the issue of whether the Chancellor was manifestly in error in so ruling.

¶ 8. The facts of the present ease raise the suspicion that, assuming that CM Foods was in a fiduciary relationship with the limited partners, CM Foods breached its fiduciary duties by failing to pay the limited partnership prices for its eggs which were comparable to prices paid to non-affiliated producers. However, Wholey and Rodger’s proof was lacking as to the issue of whether CM Foods, as opposed to CM Eggs, was in., such a fiduciary relationship with the limited partners. In addition, this Court concludes that the Chancellor’s ruling with regard to the breach of fiduciary duty was supported by substantial evidence and should be affirmed.

¶ 9. The Chancellor placed substantial weight on the fact that CM Foods disclosed in the prospectus that it might engage in self-dealing and that it might make substantial profits off its dealings with the limited partnership. This Court initially notes that a party may obviously not engage in any unfair conduct which it chooses as long as such conduct is permitted by the terms of a prospectus. A party could easily prepare a lengthy prospectus in which it grants itself the right to use the funds of the investors at its own discretion for its own personal benefit with no accountability whatsoever, but such a prospectus would amount to little more than larceny in the disguise of an investment and would properly be held to be void as against public policy.

¶ 10. The prospectus in the present case, however, does not appear to violate public policy, although the provisions of the prospectus do appear to be slanted in favor of CM Foods. Obviously, granting a party the right to set the prices which it will pay to a party which is contractually obligated to sell a given product to said party opens the door to a great potential for abuse. In light of this potential for abuse, one of the most important provisions of the prospectus is the provision requiring that the prices paid for the eggs be made with an “appraisal” or at prices “comparable to sales or purchases with unaffiliated parties.”

¶ 11. With regard to the appraisal provision, CM Foods admits that no such appraisal was ever made, and Wholey tacitly concedes that an appraisal of each batch of eggs would have been impracticable. Wholey did introduce certain evidence that CM Foods generally paid NFP lesser amounts for their eggs than it paid to non-affiliated producers. However, as noted by CM Foods, the evidence offered by the limited partners was far from conclusive in this regard.

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Related

Wholey v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.
530 So. 2d 136 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1988)

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Bluebook (online)
700 So. 2d 291, 1997 Miss. LEXIS 300, 1997 WL 413676, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wholey-v-cal-maine-foods-inc-miss-1997.