Court Opinion

ID: 9858786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:39:15.067506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:56.342846
License: Public Domain

STANLEY A. WEIGEL, Judge of the Panel
(concurring).
The salutary benefits of coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings, provided for by 28 U.S.C. § 1407, should not be denied to litigants in cases brought by the SEC. Nothing in the statute itself supports a different view. Its first sentence speaks of “civil actions involving one or more common questions of fact . . . pending in different districts”. The language is not limited to some of those actions nor does it elsewhere or otherwise except actions initiated by the SEC. The sole legislative exemption is accorded to actions brought by the United States in antitrust cases. 28 U.S.C. § 1407(g).
Whether a particular SEC action warrants transfer must be judged by the criteria designated in § 1407, i. e., will transfer serve “the convenience of parties and witnesses” and “the just and efficient conduct of [civil] actions”? *1319Thus, for example, if an SEC action is close to trial, that is a fact which properly may cause the Panel to deny it transfer with other cases which are far from trial. See, e. g., In re Glenn W. Turner Enterprises Litigation, 355 F.Supp. 1402 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.); In re King Resources Company Securities Litigation, 342 F.Supp. 1179, 1183, n. 13 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit., 1972). Such a denial would be proper only if in the interest of promoting just and efficient conduct of the action, not because it is an SEC action. If we deny transfer on the latter ground, we invoke a standard neither delineated nor suggested in the statute empowering us to act.
Under his dissent, my brother Judge Weinfeld would, in effect, jettison the majority’s case-by-case method of determination on standards expressed in the statute in favor of giving special treatment to SEC cases based largely, if not solely, upon the nature and motivation of the government agency. Perhaps this is desirable, but it is for Congress, not this court, to make that decision. There is no legislative history to suggest any such legislative decision. On the contrary, the fact that Congress limited exemptions of government actions to those for injunctive relief under the antitrust laws (§ 1407(g)) strongly implies that Congress intended to exclude other exceptions. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius. Rybolt v. Jarrett, 112 F.2d 642, 645 (4th Cir. 1940).
Concern that the public interest will be jeopardized by delays occasioned by the transfer of SEC.actions with private actions seems to me to underestimate the power and capacity of transferee judges. Whatever beneficial public interest is served by giving priority to SEC discovery can be protected by the exercise of their broad powers. Indeed, a transferee judge is in a better position than are we to decide such questions. His asessment, based upon the operative realities at the trial court level, can best strike the proper balance between whatever priority may be justified by the public interest aspects of SEC civil actions, on the one hand, and, on the other, service to the salient objectives of § 1407.