Source: http://wakeforestlawreview.com/tag/business-law/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 00:05:16+00:00

Document:
Today, the Fourth Circuit issued a published opinion in the civil case K & D Holdings, LLC v. Equitrans, L.P. In K & D Holdings, the court held that an oil and gas lease granted to defendants, Equitrans and EQT, by plaintiff, K & D Holdings, was not divisible into separate components. In reaching that conclusion, the court reversed and remanded the case to the district court with instructions to enter judgment in favor of Equitrans and EQT.
In December 1989, Henry Wallace and Sylvia Wallace signed a lease granting Equitrans the oil and gas rights to an area of land covering 180 acres in Tyler County, West Virginia. Currently, K & D is the successor in interest to the Wallaces. Additionally, Equitrans L.P., the successor-in-interest to Equitrans Corp., subleased the rights to produce and store gas on the land to EQT Corp. Essentially, the terms of the lease now govern a relationship between K & D and EQT.
The terms of the lease grant EQT the right to use the land to explore and produce oil and gas, store gas, and protect stored gas. The lease’s initial term ran for five years and would continue on for as long as a portion of the land was used for “exploration or production of gas or oil, or as gas or oil is found in paying quantities thereon or stored thereunder, or as long as said land is used for the storage of gas or the protection of gas storage on lands in the general vicinity.” After taking control of the land, EQT never engaged in exploration, production, or gas storage, but has engaged in gas storage protection. Equitrans owns the nearby Shirley Storage Field, a natural gas storage facility. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission established a buffer zone of 2000 feet around the storage area for protection of the storage facility. The leased land falls within that buffer zone.
Due to EQT and Equitrans not using the leased land for gas or oil production, K & D sought to end the arrangement and enter into a more lucrative contract with another company. On September 20, 2013, K & D filed a lawsuit in state court against EQT, arguing that it was entitled to a rebuttable presumption under West Virginia state law that EQT had abandoned the land after not producing or selling gas or oil from the property for more than twenty-four months. EQT removed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. EQT and K & D filed cross motions for summary judgment.
On September 30, 2014, the court denied both cross motions. Acting sua sponte, the district court found as a matter of law that the lease was divisible. The court argued that because the lease had two primary purposes, (1) exploration and production and (2) storage and protection, the lease could be divided into two separate leases. The lease for exploration and production of oil and gas had expired in the district court’s view, because the initial five-year term had elapsed without EQT exploring for or producing oil or gas. The court held however, that the second lease, for storage and protection, was still in force because EQT had used the land for that purpose.
On January 21, 2015, the district court issued its final order, stating that K & D was entitled to drill exploration and production wells in areas that were not within the buffer zone of the Shirley Storage Field. EQT appealed.
Because this case was heard under diversity jurisdiction, West Virginia state law applies. Under West Virginia law, contract law principles apply equally to the interpretation of leases. The primary criterion for determining if a contract is severable is whether such an intention was reflected by the parties in the terms of the contract itself, the subject matter of the contract, and the circumstances giving rise the question. A contract is not severable when it has material provisions and considerations that are interdependent and common to each other. Additionally, under West Virginia state law, there is a presumption against divisibility unless the contract explicitly states that it is divisible or the parties intent of divisibility is clearly manifested. As a general matter, West Virginia law regarding oil and gas leases are liberally construed in favor of the lessor, but only when there is ambiguity as to the lease terms.
On appeal, EQT made two arguments. First, it argued that the district court erred as a matter of law in holding the lease divisible. Second, EQT contended that the district court was wrong in determining that the exploration portion of the lease had terminated after its initial five-year term. Reviewing the district court’s findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo, the Fourth Circuit agreed with both of EQT’s arguments.
K & D argued that because EQT paid different rents depending on what activities it was engaging in, the lease was divisible. The court found this argument to not be persuasive, noting that the activities EQT could engage in under the lease were interrelated. Additionally, because the Fourth Circuit found no ambiguity in the lease, it did not need to liberally interpret in favor of the lessor.
Having decided that the lease was not divisible, the court then turned to the question of whether EQT had continuing rights under the lease. The terms of the lease dealing with renewal stated that the lease would continue beyond the initial five-year term if “(1) the lessee explores for or produces gas or oil; (2) ‘gas or oil is found in paying quantities thereon or stored thereunder’; or (3) the ‘land is used for the storage of gas or the protection of gas storage on lands in the general vicinity.” Again noting the use of the disjunctive “or,” the court found that because it was undisputed that part of the land was being used for protection, EQT continued to hold all rights under the original lease.
Having determined that the lease was not divisible and that EQT still held all rights under the original lease, the Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded the lower court’s decision, instructing that court to enter judgement in favor of EQT and Equitrans.
On December 2, 2015, the Fourth Circuit issued its published opinion in Severn Peanut Co., Inc. v. Industrial Fumigant Co. In this case, appellant Severn Peanut Co. (“Severn”) asked the Fourth Circuit to overturn the lower court’s grant of summary judgment for appellee, Industrial Fumigant Co. (“IFC”) on both the breach of contract and the negligence claim. The Fourth Circuit ultimately affirmed the grant of summary judgment because the consequential damages provision in the contract overcame the breach of contract claim and North Carolina law does not allow a plaintiff to pursue a tort claim under the guise of a contract claim.
Severn entered into an agreement with IFC to apply a pesticide, phosphine, to its peanut storage dome. The parties signed a Pesticide Application Agreement (“PAA”) which detailed that Severn would pay IFC $8,604 for the pesticide services. The contract specified that the sum excluded IFC assuming any risk of “incidental or consequential damages” to Severn’s “property, product, equipment, downtime, or loss of business.” It also stipulated that the pesticide would be applied according to the instructions on its label.
The label on the phosphine requires the user to avoid the pesticide tablets from piling up because this could lead to fire or an explosion. Despite this warning, IFC dumped 49,000 tablets of the pesticide into the peanut dome through a single hatch. The pile up of the tablets caused a fire and an explosion. Severn’s insurer paid to cover Severn’s loss of peanuts, business income, and the damage to the peanut dome. Severn filed against IFC for breach of contract and negligence. The District Court granted partial summary judgment for IFC on the breach of contract claim because it found that the consequential damages clause in the PAA excluded a claim for breach of contract. It also found Severn to be contributorily negligent, and thus granted summary judgment in favor of IFC on the negligence claim.
The Court examined the consequential damages limitations in North Carolina. It found that this doctrine allows parties the freedom to contract. It strongly stressed that it would not overhaul a valid enforceable contract that both parties agreed to and signed. It held that the consequential damages doctrine may only be limited if the clause is unconscionable. The Court found that overall the doctrine is a widely used tool for completing business.
In application to Severn’s case, the Court held that the language of the PAA established a valid consequential damages clause, and the items damaged fell within this language. It also found that the clause was not unconscionable. A clause is unconscionable when no reasonable person would view the contract’s result without feeling injustice. However, this clause was conscionable because it was between two experienced business parties who contracted specifically to include the provision; it was a fair result according to the contract.
The Court also rejected Severn’s argument that the clause was a violation of public policy. The Court refused to find consequential damage clauses against public policy without a clear indication from the North Carolina courts, of which there was none. It held that North Carolina law provides other criminal and civil penalties for the misapplication of the pesticide, so there was no reason to hold private liability as the only means of enforcement. Thus, the Court affirmed summary judgment on the breach of contract claim because the contract was an agreement between two sophisticated commercial entities who should be held to the terms of the contract they signed.
While the Court agreed with Severn’s argument that the ruling of contributory negligence ignored material facts, it still affirmed the grant of summary judgment for IFC because of the economic loss doctrine. The Court found that the negligence claims would not survive the assent to the consequential damages limitation. The economic loss doctrine “prohibits recovery for purely economic loss in tort when contract…. operates to allocate the risk.” The doctrine encourages parties to allocate the risk of loss themselves, as they are in the best position to do so.
In this case, Severn wanted to claim a remedy in tort for IFC’s breach of duty to apply the pesticide according to the label, which is the same source as their breach of contract claim. Yet since Severn bargained to limit consequential damages caused by breach of contract they cannot be allowed to try to undo that bargain using tort law. Additionally, the Court found that the storage dome and peanuts were not outside of the contract, and were not exempt from the economic loss doctrine.
Thus, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment for IFC on both the breach of contract and the negligence claim.
On December 1, 2015, the Fourth Circuit issued its published opinion in the case of Tommy Davis Construction, Inc. v. Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. The defendant, Cape Fear Public Utility, appealed the district court’s findings and award of attorneys fees in favor of plaintiff, Tommy Davis Construction. Defendant raised four issues on appeal, but the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of plaintiff and the award of attorneys fees.
Davis Construction (“Davis”) was developing a subdivision named Becker Woods, and arranged to have Aqua NC provide water and sewer services. Aqua NC was the only utility in that part of the county to offer those services, although Water and Sewer District (“WSD”), Cape Fear Public Utility’s predecessor, provided those services in other parts of the county. A County employee told Davis Construction it was necessary to pay WSD impact fees before it could get building permits from the County. WSD did not offer services where Becker Woods was located, and Davis had already paid Aqua NC those fees since it would be the utility providing the services. Despite objecting profusely, Davis paid in order to get the building permits.
About a year later WSD became Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (“Cape Fear”). Davis then applied for more permits for other lots in Becker Woods and was only required to pay the impact fees to Aqua NC for providing the services, and not to WSD.
Davis filed a suit in order to recover the fees it had paid to the county. The District Court found that Cape Fear’s collection of impact fees was “an ultra vires act beyond their statutory authority.” The district court rejected Cape Fear’s defenses of the claims being time-barred or the application of the doctrine of laches. The court awarded Davis a refund of the impact fees and attorney’s fees.
The Court found that Davis’ federal due process claim was time barred by the statute of limitations. It held that the claim was really a §1983 claim, although this was not explicitly stated. The statute of limitations for §1983 claims are borrowed from the statute of limitations in a personal injury action in that state. In North Carolina, this is a three year period that began to run when Davis paid the impact fees. Since Davis then brought the claim five years later, the federal claim is time barred.
However, the Court found that the state law claims were timely filed. It compared the present case to Point South Properties, LLC v. Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (“Point South”). That case had extremely similar facts where impact fees were forced to be paid twice to a utility that was not providing the service. That court found that the applicable statute of limitations was ten years, derived from the catch all in NC. Gen. Stat. 1-56. The Court held this ten year period was also the appropriate statute of limitations, and the state claims were timely.
The Court also rejected Cape Fear’s claim that even if the claims were timely, they were barred by the equitable doctrine of laches. The Court once again referenced Point South and came to the same conclusion as that case; laches did not apply because it is not available in an action at law. Laches also did not apply because Cape Fear did not establish that they were prejudiced by the delay in time.
The Court upheld the district court’s finding that the collection of fees was ultra vires. Cape Fear argued that since they intended to expand their services to that part of the county, the fees could have been considered in furtherance of “services to be furnished.” But the Court held that Cape Fear had only vague plans for forty years and had taken no concrete steps to expanding service to that area. The services to be furnished must take effect in a reasonable time after construction and even ten years after Davis received its permits, Cape Fear still had not taken steps to provide service. Cape Fear’s generalized goal to expand service was not sufficient, and the Court upheld the lower court’s finding of summary judgment in favor of Davis.
Cape Fear alleged that attorney’s fees were inappropriate because they were not a city or a county as required under the relevant statute. However, the district court found that the County acted outside of its legal authority by requiring Davis to pay the impact fees in order to receive its permits, and that it collected those fees on behalf of WSD. Thus, the Court found that the lower court had the authority to award attorneys fees.
The Court affirmed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment for Davis and the award of attorneys fees.
On August 18, 2015, the Fourth Circuit issued a published opinion in the civil case FDIC v. Rippy. The court held that there were genuine issues of material fact as to Cooperative Bank’s officers’ liability for ordinary negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, but upheld summary judgment for the directors as to the ordinary negligence and breach of fiduciary duty claims. The court further upheld summary judgment on the gross negligence claim for both directors and officers.
Cooperative Bank (“Cooperative”) opened in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898 and operated as a community bank and thrift until they converted to a state-charted savings bank regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) in 1992. In 2002, Cooperative became a state commercial banking institution. Because of this status, the FDIC and North Carolina Commission of Banks (“NCCB”) gave Cooperative annual reviews as its regulators.
In 2006, the FDIC conducted an annual report of Cooperative. The majority of observations in the report were positive. However, the report identified problems with credit administration and underwriting, audit practices, risk management, and liquidity. Officials at Cooperative agreed to address these problems.
In 2007, the NCCB conducted their annual review. They found that Cooperative’s management was slow to address the problems found in the 2006 FDIC Report. Again, Cooperative’s management agreed to confront the issues.
Later that same year, Credit Risk Management (“CRM”) conducted an external loan review and gave Cooperative passing grades. However, they additionally suggested that Cooperative update their credit file documentation.
In 2008, CRM again conducted an external loan review. This year however, they gave Cooperative failing grades and reported that Cooperative had problems with loan documentation, loan monitoring, and using old financial information.
After this incident, the FDIC and NCCB conducted a joint review. They found that Cooperative’s management had ignored or failed to adequately address any of their previous concerns. It was then that FDIC issued a Cease and Desist Order. After Cooperative failed to comply, the NCCB closed Cooperative and named FDIC as the receiver.
Because of Cooperative’s failure, FDIC suffered losses and later brought this suit against the directors and officers of Cooperative, stating that the directors and officers were ordinarily negligent, grossly negligent, and breached their fiduciary duties in approving loans.
At the district court, the defendants filed motions for summary judgment on all claims FDIC filed against them and FDIC filed a cross-motion for partial summary judgment on the defendants’ affirmative defenses of failure to mitigate and superseding or intervening cause.
The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants and denied FDIC’s cross-motion as moot. The district court held that FDIC failed to show evidence that the defendants engaged in “self-dealing or fraud” or acted in bad faith. Thus, the court argued, that their actions were protected by the business judgment rule from claims of ordinary negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. There was also no evidence that Cooperative’s officers and directors engaged in “wanton conduct” or “consciously disregarded” the corporation; the court held that the defendants were not grossly negligent either.
Under North Carolina law, a director or officer can be liable for ordinary negligence. North Carolina law also allows corporations to shield directors from liability by including an exculpatory clause in their articles of incorporation. The business judgment rule further constrains liability for officers and directors for ordinary negligence.
Cooperative’s articles of incorporation included an exculpatory provision that shielded its directors. The provision protected directors from liability for ordinary negligence and breach of fiduciary duties.
Because FDIC only argued that defendants took harmful actions without obtaining adequate information, and did not produce sufficient evidence that the directors engaged in self-dealing, fraud, or acted in bad faith, the exculpatory provision in Cooperative’s articles protected the directors in this case.
The Fourth Circuit therefore affirmed the district court’s award of summary judgment to the directors on FDIC’s ordinary negligence and breach of fiduciary duty claims.
Because Cooperative’s exculpatory provision only covered directors, the Fourth Circuit analyzed the officers’ liability under the business judgment rule. The business judgment rule creates a presumption that the officers acted with due care. This presumption can be rebutted with evidence that the officers (1) did not act on an informed basis, (2) acted in bad faith or with a conflict of interest, or (3) did not believe they were acting in the best interest of the bank.
The Fourth Circuit found that FDIC presented adequate evidence to survive summary judgment and rebut the presumption of the business judgment rule. They presented an expert who stated that the officers did not act in accordance with generally accepted banking practices, which shows that the officers may not have acted on an informed basis. Therefore, the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment in regards to the officers on the issues of ordinary negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.
To survive a motion for summary judgment, FDIC had to show that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the defendants’ actions constituted “wanton conduct done with conscious or reckless disregard.” The Fourth Circuit found that FDIC did not present sufficient evidence and thus affirmed the district court’s award of summary judgment to the defendants on FDIC’s claim of gross negligence.
The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s award of summary judgment in regards to Cooperative’s officers on FDIC’s claims of ordinary negligence and breach of fiduciary duty and remanded those claims for further proceedings. The court also reversed and remanded the district court’s order denying as moot the FDIC’s cross-motion for summary judgment. On FDIC’s remaining claims, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment.
Today, in a published opinion in the civil case of Lord & Taylor, LLC v. White Flint, L.P., the Fourth Circuit affirmed a ruling from the District of Maryland which refused to stop plans for redevelopment of a now-vacant shopping mall. It did so over the objections of the plaintiff, Lord & Taylor, which had argued the plans were barred by an existing Reciprocal Easement Agreement (“REA”) between the parties.
In 1975, White Flint began discussions with Lord & Taylor about developing a store at a new mall in Maryland. The parties ultimately agreed Lord & Taylor would serve as an anchor tenant in a building detached from the mall itself.
As part of their agreement, they entered into the REA, which bound White Flint to operating a three-story mall on the site. Any changes to the mall were to be approved by Lord & Taylor. The REA was to remain operative until at least 2042, and Lord & Taylor had an option to extend it until 2057 by exercising its final option to renew its lease.
The relationship was initially positive, but business at the mall steadily declined. By 2013, 75 percent of the mall’s tenants had left, and the mall was ultimately shuttered permanently early in 2015.
In October 2012, the local county government approved plans to tear down the mall and redevelop the site into a mixed-use development with apartments, parks, a hotel, and high-rise office buildings. The Lord & Taylor store was to remain in place.
Lord & Taylor filed an action to stop White Flint from going forward with the redevelopment plan, saying the REA promised Lord & Taylor’s store would have a “first class high fashion shopping center” adjacent to it for the duration of its lease. It said the new plans violated the terms of the REA and would negatively affect the store’s business.
Lord & Taylor sought declaratory judgment that the REA barred the plans and a permanent injunction that would prohibit White Flint from replacing the mall with the proposed “town center” development.
White Flint moved for partial summary judgment, arguing it would be infeasible for the courts to enforce an injunction requiring what was, by then, a mostly empty mall to resume operations and then to maintain status as a “first class high fashion shopping center” until 2057. White Flint further argued that halting the redevelopment project was against the public interest given the time and expense already devoted to the project.
The District Court granted White Flint’s motion, concluding an injunction would be unworkable in light of the advanced stage of the project.
On appeal to the Fourth Circuit, Lord & Taylor argued two separate issues: (1) that the district court erred by failing to apply the correct Maryland law to its request for injunctive relief, and (2) that the district court erred in judging the injunctive relief it sought would not be feasible.
The Fourth Circuit rejected both arguments, adopting similar reasoning to that of the District of Maryland in choosing to affirm the lower court’s decision.
Lord & Taylor argued a proper application of Maryland law would necessarily mean an injunction should be granted. It indicated Maryland law strongly favors injunctive relief for breaches of restrictive covenants, to the point that other factors such as the public interest or the availability of monetary damages to compensate for a breach aren’t to be considered.
But the Fourth Circuit disagreed. It noted that even the cases cited by Lord & Taylor said that injunctive relief is subject to “sound judicial discretion.” Further, Maryland law makes clear that trial courts may take account of feasibility concerns, such as those cited by the District Court in this case, in considering injunctive relief for breach of a restrictive covenant.
The Fourth Circuit indicated Maryland courts have made clear that injunctions may be denied if they would cause courts to have to engage in “long-continued supervision” or “enforcement of the injunction would be ‘unreasonably difficult.'” Thus, it rejected Lord & Taylor’s argument.
Lord & Taylor further argued that the District Court incorrectly ruled that injunctive relief in this case would be infeasible. The Fourth Circuit reviewed that decision under an abuse of discretion standard and affirmed the lower court ruling. In making its decision, the Fourth Circuit noted that the practical realities of the situation didn’t weigh in favor of an injunction.
Much of the mall was vacant, so enforcing the REA would have necessitated an affirmative injunction ordering White Flint to transform the mall back into a “first class high fashion shopping center.” Such an order is difficult to draft with specificity, and also difficult to enforce. The court would be left to enforce detailed provisions involving parking and interior access roads, potentially for a protracted period of time, and such enforcement is beyond the level of judicial involvement that is practical.
While Lord & Taylor had indicated a “negative injunction” (which would merely bar the redevelopment plans from going forward) would be acceptable, the Fourth Circuit said that, too, was unrealistic. Such an injunction would freeze in place a vacant mall, and would essentially be a judicially-mandated blight on the area. The court was not prepared to take such a step, doing so would be against the public interest.
On Monday, January 26, in the civil case of Jones v. Southpeak Interactive Corporation, a published opinion, the Fourth Circuit established that in a claim for retaliatory firing under 18 U.S.C. § 1514A, part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”), evidence of an administrative complaint that was not answered within 180 days is sufficient to exhaust a plaintiff’s administrative remedies, that such claims under SOX are subject to a four-year statute of limitations, and finally, that under SOX emotional distress damages are available to plaintiffs.
In 2009, Andrea Jones (“Jones”), the plaintiff in this case, was serving as the chief financial officer of Southpeak Interactive, the defendant. In February of that year, the company placed an order for over 50,000 video games from Nintendo. Southpeak, however, was in a predicament. It needed the games “as soon as possible” but did not have the funds to cover the cost up front. To avoid a potentially problematic delay, the chairman of Southpeak’s board, Terry Phillips, wired Nintendo $307,400 from his personal account. In May of that year Southpeak had not recorded the debt properly on its balance sheet or its quarterly financial report, which was filed with the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”).
When Jones became aware of the improper filing, she reported to Southpeak’s audit committee that she suspected the company was engaged in fraud. In response, Southpeak sought to rectify the improper filing with the SEC by submitting an amendment. In the proposed amendment, Southpeak denied any intentional fraud. Jones was asked to sign the report, and refused. On August 13, 2009, Jones sent a letter to Southpeak’s outside counsel stating that: “I do not know how a conclusion of no intentional wrongdoing or fraud can be reached.” The board of Southpeak convened a special meeting that very same day and fired Jones. This claim for retaliatory discharge under 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(a) ensued. 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(a) states that it is illegal for publicly traded companies to retaliate against employees who report potentially unlawful conduct.
On October 5, 2009, Jones filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”)—claiming her discharge was a retaliation to her reporting the company’s fraud. After 180 days of no action from OSHA, Jones informed the administration that she was electing to file a federal lawsuit pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(b)(1)(B) of SOX and 29 C.F.R.§ 1980.114(b). Her actions were satisfactory to the Fourth Circuit to fulfill her claim for administrative remedies, which were required to be exhausted under the statute.
Southpeak also sought to have Jones’s claim dismissed for having lapsed the applicable statute of limitations. The Fourth Circuit easily dismissed this argument. Under 28 U.S.C. 1658(a), the section of the law that Jones brought her claim under, a plaintiff has a four-year window to file a claim for retaliatory discharge.
Southpeak, additionally, attempted to have the award of emotional distress damages overturned. The defendant claimed that this award was improper under SOX, however, the Fourth Circuit found 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(c)(1) instructive. Under that provision of SOX, in a successful claim for a retaliatory firing, a plaintiff may be entitled to “all relief necessary to make [her] whole.” The court read that provision broadly enough to mean that emotional distress damages were to be included.
Was the “Final” Verdict Really Final?
Southpeak, finally, attempted to have the verdict overturned because it claimed the jury was “confused” in its verdict. This argument held little merit to the circuit judges, as the jury was polled by a clerk at the conclusion of the trial—with each juror confirming the verdict—and the decision was not “clearly against the weight of the evidence.” Therefore, the court dismissed the argument.
Because the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that the administrative remedy had been exhausted, the claim was not barred by any statute of limitations, that emotional damages were available to Ms. Jones, and that there was no evidence of jury “confusion,” the Fourth Circuit affirmed.
The Fourth Circuit, in Projects Management Co. v. Dyncorp International LLC, affirmed summary judgment in favor of the Defendant in a breach of contract action because the Plaintiff did not offer sufficient proof of the benefits it had received from Defendant’s deficient performance.
Projects Management Co. (“PMC”) sued DynCorp International LLC (“DynCorp”) for breach of contract after DynCorp mistakenly made payments totaling approximately 1.2 million dollars to the personal bank account of PMC’s Managing Director, Hussein Fawaz, rather than to PMC.
The evidence indicated that Fawaz had used at least some of the money that DynCorp deposited in his account to benefit PMC (by paying subcontractor and supplier expenses related to the contract). Still, PMC sought damages for the full amount it had deposited in Fawaz’s account, and refused to provide information that could have established how much of the money had been used to benefit PMC.
After DynCorp moved for summary judgment based in part on PMC’s failure to provide a proper measure of actual damages, PMC changed their demand for damages to $ 103,000. PMC claimed that this new amount took into account the money that Fawaz had used to PMC’s benefit. The only support for this assertion was a “conclusory affidavit” from the same PMC representative who had initially insisted that the proper measure of damages was the full 1.2 million dollars.
Applying Virginia law, the Fourth Circuit reiterated that the plaintiff in a breach of contract action has the burden to establish damages “with reasonable certainty.” To meet this burden, PMC would have had to offer evidence of the benefit it received, so that it could have been subtracted from the total amount deposited in Fawaz’s account to establish actual damages. At trial, PMC failed to offer evidence of the amount of benefit, relying instead on a “conclusory affidavit” that simply presented a final number. The Fourth Circuit did not consider this sufficient to establish damages to a reasonable certainty, and it affirmed the district court’s decisions to grant summary judgment and to deny reconsideration.
The Wake Forest Law Review’s 2011 Business Law Symposium brought together legal scholars and policy leaders who offer a range of perspectives on “The Sustainable Corporation.” How do business firms contribute to – or undermine – the ability of social, ecological and environmental systems to endure? The question raises issues concerning community development, corporate governance, energy policy, environmental law, institutional shareholders, labor relations, business transparency, nonprofits, and securities markets. The business community is actively engaged in understanding the practical challenges of sustainability. This Symposium seeks to create greater awareness of the legal challenges to the corporation becoming an instrument of sustainability.
The paper will discuss the new “benefit corporation” concept being pioneered in Maryland and Vermont, and on which several other states are likely to take action in the coming year. This “benefit corporation” is another new hybrid form of organization, created to house socially-minded businesses. Unlike the L3C model, which works on a limited liability company framework, benefit corporations are corporate models. Distinct from traditional business corporations, however, benefit corporations must pursue “a general public benefit” and must require directors to consider constituencies other than shareholders in making decisions. Intriguingly, all of this vetted by independent, third party standard-setting organizations rather than by state government officials. This article will explain the benefit corporation form, compare it with other traditional and hybrid forms available to social enterprises, and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of privatizing inquiries into public benefit.
Virtually all of the efforts to coax corporations on a more sustainable path, including the growing use of sustainability disclosures, are understood as efforts to redress negative externalities. Firms must produce disclosures and analyses of the sustainability of their production life cycle, it is believed, because the firms are the ones generating the pollution and other unsustainable practices.
In this paper I argue that this conventional framing of corporate sustainability disclosures as needed to redress negative externalities may have the problem backwards, at least with respect to the creation of rigorous sustainability analyses, like life cycle analyses. Instead, disclosures and internal analyses related to corporate sustainability may be much closer to a public good as opposed to part of a firm’s responsibility to redress a negative externality, or a corporate bad. Since life cycle analyses are done to allow cross-comparisons between firms, identify areas for possible productive synergies with other firms, and highlight areas of corporate activities in need of greater regulatory oversight and direction, for example, there are clear public good qualities associated with them. Moreover and in contrast to other information disclosures (like TRI or SEC requirements), life cycle analysis in particular can be quite costly for an individual firm to collect and analyze. Firms also enjoy fewer advantages in producing these analyses since sustainability analyses such as life cycle analysis involve less internally held information (as contrasted to emissions inventories) and demand a higher level of engineering expertise than is the case for other environmental disclosures. While the resulting life cycle analyses may reveal ways that firms are adversely impacting the environment, the cutting edge nature of the analyses, coupled with the synergies across firms from the resulting information cause the public good characteristics of these disclosures to rival and even exceed the corporate bad qualities.
Perhaps more important, the primary payoff from conceptualizing of corporate sustainability disclosures, like life cycle analyses, as public goods rather than as corporate bads cause primary responsibility for their development to shift from individual firms to the government. In fact, when these life cycle analyses are produced in the first instance by expert regulators, many of the problems that have thwarted their success (e.g., rigor, reliability, accessibility) are largely bypassed. Consumers, investors, insurers, regulators, and the firm itself will have a more reliable and timely basis for assessing firm sustainability. This rigorous, agency-prepared baseline can then help jumpstart both market and regulatory solutions to advance corporate sustainability in the future.
What is the role of the firm in the sustainability literature? This symposium contribution seeks to explore the issue by looking at the sustainability efforts of NASCAR and its affiliated firms. NASCAR has undertaken significant environmental sustainability initiatives, particularly the promotion of alternative fuels. These sustainability efforts are facilitated, in part, by the unusual structure of NASCAR and the sport of stock-car racing. By focusing on the corporate structure of NASCAR and its affiliated entities, this article seeks to complicate the traditional sustainability narrative. Because both supporters and critics of sustainability theory assume a publicly held corporation in a wide-open industry, they have missed opportunities to explore why a “firm” should or should not care about sustainability efforts within its own internal culture or within its industry as a whole.
The article will then shift to transportation energy use by corporations, highlighting several innovations options undertaken by corporations to be sustainable. In this sense, it will look at both direct on-site use of energy by the corporation, as well as more indirect use in terms of transportation.
Promote other legal forms of business associations in which employees can play a greater role.
The essay suggests a variety of criteria that should be used in evaluating these strategies. One must balance the probability of success of a strategy (i.e. its political feasibility) with the net benefits it would achieve if successful. The benefits and costs of each strategy must include effects both on the internal efficiency of corporations, the fairness of resulting outcomes, and implications for the balance of political power. One must also balance short-term and long-term effects of the differing strategies. The essay concludes by applying these criteria to the six listed strategies, and suggesting a mix of strategies that appears most attractive at this point. In that mix, a leading short-run strategy is siding with shareholders over managers and directors in current power struggles (since union and public employee pension funds are leading shareholder activists), while for the long-run developing alternative legal forms should be a leading strategy.
This paper presents two ways of thinking about corporate social responsibility (CSR), one familiar, the other less so. The first model conceives of CSR in latitudinal terms, emphasizing the broad range of interests that corporate activity is supposed to serve and the diverse considerations that ought to motivate corporate management. According to this view, corporations should be operated with due regard for all of their various stakeholders, not just shareholders but also employees, consumers, creditors, and members of the general public affected by corporate activity. One example of this approach is the so-called constituency statutes adopted by over 30 states. These statutes typically authorize decisionmaking that takes into consideration the interests of a wide range of enumerated corporate constituencies. As such, this model rejects the shareholder primacy view that corporations should be managed primarily for the benefit of their shareholders.
The second model is longitudinal in orientation and focuses on the corporation’s sustainability. Here the emphasis is not necessarily on mediating the conflicting interests of particular constituencies but instead on the long-term success of the corporation as a whole. This requires cultivation of viable relationships with those who contribute to production, attention to the effects of the corporation’s activities on society, including management of environmental and social costs, and a long-term conception of shareholder value. The longitudinal perspective thus has the potential to address many of the concerns that motivate CSR advocates.
This paper will illuminate the contrasts between these models and assess their prospects in light of law, economics, and business practice.
In his groundbreaking 1937 essay “The Theory of the Firm,” Ronald Coase explained that production is sometimes organized through arms-length contractual exchange “in the market” and at other times is organized through command and control “in the firm.” Coase showed that production is based within the firm where the costs of determining prices for various inputs exceeds the gains that are witnessed when markets, rather than fiat, determines the allocation of resources. Coase’s theory has had tremendous influence in economics generally and in corporate law scholarship in particular. What is missing in Coase’s theory of the firm, however, is any conceptualization of consumption activity.
Contemporary “nexus of contracts” models of the corporation presuppose, typically without elaboration, that consumers are part of the “nexus,” along with investors, workers, and communities. This article will begin to integrate “consumption” into Coase’s theory of the firm by showing that much like with production, consumption sometimes is organized through spot arms-lengths transactions “in the market,” where prices are easily obtained, but that consumption also is sometimes organized at least in-part “in the firm,” when prices are difficult to obtain, or where fiat can substantially lower the transactions cost involved in consumption. A quintessential example of firm-based consumption would be employee “fringe” benefits, but there are many such forms of consumption that are entirely divorced from the employee relationship.
The present article will focus in particular on the ways in which consumer preferences for “sustainable” consumption are sometimes managed “in-house,” within the firm, rather than through spot transactions in the market. This work will build on my recent scholarship which has endeavored to flesh out a more sophisticated conception of the consumer as part of the “corporate nexus” than is otherwise available in corporate law scholarship.
What is a sustainable corporation and why aren’t there more of them? This paper argues that corporate law’s traditional focus on shareholder profits stifles sustainability efforts inasmuch as sustainable corporations take a broader view of the firm and its goals. The paper also weighs alternatives for increasing sustainable corporations’ numbers and encouraging corporations of all stripes to act more sustainably. These include imposing sustainability on corporations, requiring sustainability disclosures, and raising awareness that sustainable business practices fully comport with corporate laws and even typically enhance long-term firm value for all of a corporation’s stakeholders.
In response to the financial crisis that began in August 2007, Congress recently enacted the Dodd-Frank Act (‘Act’), an ambitious set of financial market reforms that changes the landscape for corporate funding. The Act aspires to reduce financial instability by reducing and managing the risks of excessive borrowing by companies, including financial firms. I apply economist Hyman Minsky’s axioms about leverage markets to analyze whether the Act can meaningfully mitigate the patterns of financial instability that led to the last credit market break.
In the past decade, the United Nations has taken a more intensive interest in the relationship between multinationals and human rights. Traditionally, states have been the focus of such inquiries, but as multinationals have become adept at transcending national governments’ regulatory powers, and as multinationals often profit from projects in nations which have weak rule of law, the corporation itself is increasingly becoming a locus of international human rights expectations. The 2010 Report from John Ruggie (the Special Representative to the Secretary General on the Business and Human Rights) takes the “Protect-Respect-Remedy” framework outlined in conceptual detail in the 2008 Report, and seeks to “operationalize” it through an examination of potential sites of enforcement. This step is crucial, of course, because resort to traditional courts is often impractical for persons claiming rights abuses. Whether it’s a matter of private plaintiffs’ litigation and travel costs, or procedural hurdles like jurisdiction or forum non conveniens, or evidentiary problems, traditional civil litigation is a suboptimal structure for managing multinationals’ shortfalls in the human rights arena. After a brief look at the problems associated with traditional litigation, this paper surveys and critiques the 2010 Report’s proposals for expanding the forms and nature of remediation in the business and human rights area. It then examines issues of remedies and deterrence from the perspective of corporate governance. In particular, it argues that traditional corporate law makes it difficult to pinpoint responsibility for human rights compliance (on the part of individual corporate agents or the corporation as an entity). Such blurring of personal responsibility, as effectuated by traditional corporate law concepts, is itself a challenge to be addressed in the construction of remedial structures.
Climate change is a case in point for the necessity of working towards a sustainable development, i.e. achieving economic development and social justice within the non-negotiable ecological limits of our planet. While we have little hope of achieving the overarching societal goal of a sustainable development without the contribution of companies, the contribution of companies is restricted by a number of barriers, notably that of shareholder primacy and the perceived overarching goal of maximising shareholder profit. Clearly, voluntary CSR is not sufficient. This paper therefore argues that the law is necessary to ensure the contribution of companies, to level the playing field for companies that wish to actively contribute to the mitigation of climate change, and to ensure that their contribution is not limited by the competitive advantage that today’s system tends to give irresponsible and short-sighted companies.
The question is: what area of the law? The limits of external regulation, notable environmental law, are well-documented and consist of a number of interlinked factors, of which the paper gives an overview. The paper makes the argument that company law is a necessary tool for achieving sustainable companies, both to make more effective the external regulation of companies and to realise the potential within each company to make its own independent, creative and active contribution to the mitigation of climate change.
The paper goes on to give the tentative results of a cross-jurisdictional analysis of the possibilities and barriers in company law in a number of jurisdictions, based on mapping papers from the project team of the research project Sustainable Companies. Based on these tentative results, the paper concludes with some reflections on possible company law reform as a way forward. As does the research project, this paper focuses on mitigation of climate change as a specific case. Climate change provides a powerful example to illustrate broader challenges in promoting corporate environmental responsibility through company law reform. In other words, if it is possible to induce a company to act more responsibly on climate change issues, then presumably it would extend its heightened environmental awareness and commitment to other environmental issues. Focusing on climate change can provide a catalyst for wider corporate engagement with the environment and also have a positive knock-on effect as regards the social dimension of sustainable development.
*Participants will speak for 25 minutes each during their respective session. Each participant will present their paper for 15 minutes to be followed by 10 minutes of question and answer.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 §1983
 §1983
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 1514
 § 1514
 § 1514
 § 1514
 § 1514
 v.