Court Opinion

ID: 9462082
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:31:39.505549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:23.807938
License: Public Domain

FEINBERG, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the reversal of the judgment of the district court dismissing the complaint. I agree with Judge *159Moore that plaintiffs’ papers in the district court did present, however inartfully, a claim based upon the NYSE’s failure to use reasonable diligence in supervising Weis in the period 1971-1973. On that theory, plaintiffs might be able to prove that had the NYSE been more diligent Weis would not have gone as deeply into debt and might have been saved. See Julien affidavit quoted at p. 156 of Judge Moore’s opinion. Then plaintiffs could try to prove all the elements of damages flowing from the SIPC liquidation, spelled out at p. 155 of Judge Moore’s opinion, although, of course, I express no view as to plaintiffs’ chance of success. For that reason, the entry of summary judgment for defendants was improper.
However, on remand, it would still be appropriate for the district court to narrow the issues before it considerably. There is no allegation in the complaint or in the papers on the summary judgment motion that the entry of Laden-burg into the affairs of Weis in any way caused the SIPC liquidation. It is quite clear that by the time Ladenburg entered the picture, Weis was already moribund. Thus, whether plaintiffs found out about the true condition of Weis six weeks earlier or not,* the liquidation would have followed and plaintiffs would have suffered all the damages of which they now complain. Therefore, there is no reason to allow the case to continue on any theory other than plaintiffs’ claim that the NYSE’s failure to supervise in the period 1971-1973 caused Weis’s liquidation and plaintiffs’ alleged damages.

 The NYSE allegedly learned of Weis’s troubles in mid-April 1973; the SIPC liquidation commenced at the end of May.