Opinion ID: 199303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Claims Against Biopure

Text: 23 Fisher's leading claim against Biopure on appeal is for breach of contract. Fisher claims that the so-called Term Sheet between Balfour and Biopure was not a draft agreement later superceded by the Biopure contract, but rather is a binding agreement by itself, and that Biopure is in breach by refusing to recognize Fisher's rights under it. 5 24 The problem with Fisher's claim is that, as the district court held, at this point in the litigation any contract rights arising out of Fisher's joint venture with Trainor belong to CFI. Regardless of whether those rights derive from the Term Sheet or the Biopure contract, the point of the district court's July 1994 judgment was to grant CFI a constructive trust over those rights, because they had been acquired with funds defrauded from CFI. The July judgment did leave Fisher room to claim a stake to CFI's constructive trust, and we consider his claims on that point below; but unless and until he succeeds on those claims, only CFI has the right to recover under any rights against Biopure arising from the Fisher-Trainor joint venture. 25 Apparently recognizing this obstacle to suit, Fisher obscurely claims in the alternative that he never entered into any contract with Biopure as part of a joint venture with Trainor. Rather, he says, he entered into his own contract with Biopure in the form of the Term Sheet, while Trainor contracted with Biopure separately. Thus, he concludes, his is an independent claim: he claims rights against Biopure wholly independent from any rights acquired by Trainor with tainted funds, and hence wholly independent from the rights granted CFI in the July judgment. 26 This rank revisionism can be quickly dismissed. Throughout the course of the litigation, Fisher has maintained that the Term Sheet was negotiated not on his personal behalf, but on behalf of his joint venture with Trainor. Not only did Fisher state in his complaint that Fisher and Trainor agreed that they would use Balfour as a vehicle for their transaction with Biopure, and that the Term Sheet was negotiated with Balfour being used on behalf of the joint venture, but Fisher later swore to the same in a 1991 affidavit, and again in the 1992 trial proceedings. 6 27 Thus Fisher cannot claim to have entered any independent contract with Biopure. If the Term Sheet was a binding contract, it was entered into jointly by Fisher and Trainor, and the fact remains that whatever rights the joint venture acquired it acquired with funds Trainor defrauded from CFI. Consequently, Fisher cannot escape the reach of the July judgment, which granted to CFI any rights so acquired. The district court's grant of summary judgment on Fisher's claims against Biopure was thus not in error.