Court Opinion

ID: 9442261
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:41:27.841097+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:01.879838
License: Public Domain

PER CURIAM.
On September 12, 1949, M. Victor Leventritt filed a petition to review a plan of reorganization of the Niagara Hudson Power Corporation and subsidiaries on the ground that it gave no recognition to holders of option warrants, of whom he was one. The petition for review was filed pursuant to Section 24(a) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act 15 U.S.C.A. § 79x (a). On November 8, 1949, Leventritt filed a notice of appeal from an order of the District Court for the Western District of New York dated November 4, 1949, approving the same plan in an enforcement proceeding instituted by the Commission on August 26, 1949, pursuant to the provisions of Section 11(e) of the Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 79K (e). The Commission has moved to dismiss the petition for review under Section 24(a), relying on the decision of this court in Okin v. S. E. C., 145 F.2d 206, as well as on the decision of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Blatchley v. S. E. C., 157 F.2d 898, and of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Lownsbury v. S. E. C., 151 F.2d 217, certiorari denied 326 U.S. 782, 66 S.Ct. 337, 90 L.Ed. 474.
Leventritt, the petitioner and appellant, argues that the decision of the Supreme Court in S. E. C. v. Central-Illinois Securities Corp., 338 U.S. 96, 69 S.Ct. 1377, has invalidated the holdings of the Courts of Appeal in the above mentioned cases to the effect that a petition for review cannot be prosecuted in the Court of Appeals under Section 24(a) if an enforcement proceeding under Section 11(e) is pending in the District Court. In our opinion the decision of the Supreme Court in S. E. C. v. Central-Illinois Securities Corp., 338 U.S. 96, 69 S.Ct. 1377, only involved the scope of review under Sections 24(a) and 11(e), holding the scope indentical under the two sections, and neither overruled nor considered any of the Court of Appeals decisions we have referred to. A majority of the judges who heard the motion made before this court to dismiss the petition for review filed under Section 24(a) think that we should follow the former ruling of this court and of the Courts of Appeal for the First and Third Circuits. Accordingly the motion to dismiss the petition for review taken under Section 24(a) is granted.