Monthly Archives: January 2020

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Retirement Plans Committee of IBM v. Jander

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IBM has a retirement plan, part of which is based on company stock. The person managing that stock, failed to act on information that IBM’s microelectronics unit was having issues, which would have presumably lowered the stock’s value, and thus harmed the holders of the stock. So they sued, because that’s what you do when you think someone fucked you in the ass without so much as a reach around.

Back in 2014, SCOTUS ruled in  Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, 573 U.S. that the person running such funds is not given a “presumption of prudence.” This is a fancy way of saying, the courts do not assume this person has done the right thing unless there’s strong evidence to prove otherwise. Making the burden of proof for beneficiaries to prove wrongdoing, not that high. They pretty much just have to show that they could,  “plausibly allege that a prudent fiduciary in the defendant’s position could not have concluded that [an alternative action] would do more harm than good to the fund.”

As such, the IBM peeps were like, “this dude fucked up, and we want our god damn losses covered. These assholes knew there was a problem, but instead of buying other stuck which was a safer bet, they kept investing in IBM stock.”

So now here we are at SCOTUS trying to decide if a fiduciary who knows the company stock may have an issue, but keeps investing anyway, be assumed to have done more harm than good under the previous 5/3 Bank ruling?

SCOTUS however, decided that they’ve heard all the arguments and they were bored AF with them. So much so, that they couldn’t even be bothered to give an opinion. So they sent it back to the second court to deal with that shit.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry LLC.

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Ritzen Group was trying to buy a piece of property from these deadbeats at Jackson Masonry. But then at the last moment, Jackson sent over some bullshit paperwork that caused Ritzen to have to pull out of the deal. Jackson was shit at their finances, and ended up filing for bankruptcy. So clearly, they were trying to pull something over on Ritzen in selling the property.

So Ritzen sued Jackson for breech of contract, but then Jackson was like, “Oh you’re gonna sue us asshole? We’ll sue you!” And so they did—claiming Ritzen entered into the deal when they didn’t have the money to actually buy the property, and thus were themselves in breech of contract.

So then the deadbeats at Jackson, having filed for bankruptcy, sought protection from Ritzen’s lawsuit, which is what bankruptcy does, among other things. But Ritzen filed a motion to lift the protection against Jackson, and were denied. So Ritzen sued the bankruptcy estate, and they ruled in favor of Jackson, saying that Ritzen’s failure to secure financing for the property was the breech of contract, not Jackson’s bullshit paperwork.

So Ritzen, having been fucked every step of the way, appealed yet again in district court, both appeals were denied. One denied because the courts said Ritzen didn’t appeal in time. The other, they just didn’t think Ritzen proved it’s argument worth a shit.

So now we’re at SCOTUS trying to figure out if the denial of relief for Ritzen are considered a final order, which affects how long Ritzen had to file its appeal. Because there’s steps in the process, and in order to file appeal, you first have to have a final order, otherwise you’re appealing before it’s been decided.

Unanimous decision for Jackson. Once a bankruptcy court has denied relief to the creditor, it is a final decision and therefore open for appeals, which means Jackson waited too damn long.