FRIEDMAN, J.
This appeal requires us to determine whether a federal statute, the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (Pub L 105-353, 112 US Stat 3227, codified in pertinent part at 15 USC § 78bb [f] [SLUSA or the Act]), mandates the dismissal of fraud claims against an accounting firm asserted by plaintiff
RGH, through its subsidiary Reliance Financial Services Corp. (RFS), owned Reliance Insurance Company (RIC), a property and casualty insurer.
The amended complaint alleges that Reliance's 1999 consolidated financial statements, which Deloitte had certified,
The amended complaint alleges that the four categories of Reliance creditors on whose behalf this action is being prosecuted—bondholders, bank lenders, employees, and the PBGC—relied to their detriment on Deloitte's certification of the allegedly inaccurate 1999 financial statements in the following general ways:
Thereafter, on August 14, 2000, RGH filed its 10-Q for the second quarter of 2000 (the August 14 10-Q), which reported, among other bad news: (1) that the company had an after-tax net loss of approximately $504 million for the quarter; (2) that actuarial net loss reserves were being increased by $444.2 million; (3) that Best's downgrading of RIC's rating during the quarter (from "A-" [Excellent] to "B++" [Very Good] and then to "B" [Fair]) was believed to "seriously impair [RIC's] ability to write many of its lines of business," as a result of which Reliance had entered into agreements to sell much of its property and casualty businesses and had written off its remaining $195.6 million goodwill balance; and (4) that, as a result of the Best downgrade, RGH "d[id] not expect to be able to obtain regulatory approval for dividends from [RIC] sufficient to fund the repayment at maturity of [RGH's] bank debt and the senior notes." The August 14 10-Q also warned, ominously:
Reliance ultimately could not recover from its financial difficulties. A Pennsylvania court placed RIC in rehabilitation in May 2001 and in liquidation the following October. On June 12, 2001, RGH and RFS filed voluntary petitions for relief under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code (11 USC).
In 2005, the bankruptcy court approved a reorganization plan for Reliance (the reorganization plan), pursuant to which
In 2006, the RGH Trust commenced this action against Deloitte and defendant Jan A. Lommele, a Deloitte principal. The original complaint asserted causes of action for fraud, inter alia, on behalf of both Reliance and its unsecured creditors. Supreme Court granted Deloitte's motion to dismiss the original complaint but gave the RGH Trust leave to replead the fraud claims on behalf of the creditors so as to allege reliance with more particularity (13 Misc.3d 1219[A], 2006 NY Slip Op 51908[U]). On the RGH Trust's appeal, this Court affirmed the dismissal with prejudice of all claims on behalf of Reliance (47 A.D.3d 516 [2008]). The fraud claims asserted on behalf of Reliance's unsecured creditors were not at issue on the prior appeal.
After the dismissal of the original complaint, the RGH Trust filed the present amended complaint on behalf of Reliance's unsecured creditors. The amended complaint asserts one cause of action for "actuarial fraud" and one cause of action for "accounting and auditing fraud" on behalf of the creditors, but, consistent with this Court's affirmance of the order dismissing the original complaint, omits any claims on behalf of Reliance itself. Deloitte again moved to dismiss. Supreme Court granted the motion solely to the extent of dismissing the claims asserted on behalf of unidentified former employees, and sustained the legal sufficiency of the remainder of the amended complaint (17 Misc.3d 1128[A], 2007 NY Slip Op 52181[U]). This appeal by Deloitte ensued.
We will first discuss the bondholder claims, which we hold to be barred by SLUSA, and then we will turn to the claims of
Deloitte argues that the claims the RGH Trust asserts on behalf of holders of bonds issued by Reliance are barred by SLUSA. We agree. Congress's purpose in enacting SLUSA was to prevent a group of more than 50 claimants, or a litigant seeking to represent a class having more than 50 prospective members, from evading the limits placed on actions under the federal securities laws by casting securities-related fraud claims as state-law claims in a single lawsuit (see SLUSA, Pub L 105-353, § 2, 112 US Stat 3227 [setting forth the findings that prompted the legislation]; see also Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v Dabit, 547 U.S. 71, 82 [2006]). This is precisely what the RGH Trust and the bondholders are doing in this action. In this regard, we note that it is undisputed that the bondholders' claims against Deloitte, if brought under the federal securities laws, would have been time-barred under federal law when this action was commenced in 2006.
SLUSA provides, among other things, that
The term "covered security" is defined, in pertinent part, as a security that was listed on a national securities exchange at the time of the misstatement or omission alleged in the lawsuit (15 USC § 78bb [f] [5] [E] [referring to section 18 (b) of the Securities Act of 1933 (15 USC § 77r [b])]), as were the bonds issued by Reliance.
There is no dispute that the claims the RGH Trust asserts on behalf of the Reliance bondholders have most of the characteristics that trigger SLUSA's applicability. As pleaded by the RGH Trust itself, the claims are based on state law. Moreover, the RGH Trust does not dispute that the bondholders' claims are based on alleged misrepresentations made "in connection with the purchase or sale of a covered security."
Since it is undisputed that all the other elements required to render SLUSA applicable are satisfied, the RGH Trust's ability to pursue the bondholders' claims in this single lawsuit turns on whether those claims seek "damages ... on behalf of more than 50 persons" (15 USC § 78bb [f] [5] [B] [i] [I]). The amended complaint, however, says nothing about the number of Reliance
Deloitte argues that, given the substantial and uncontradicted indications in the record that Reliance bonds are held by more than 50 persons, the amended complaint's silence on the number of bondholders justifies drawing an inference adverse to the RGH Trust.
We agree with Deloitte that this sort of gamesmanship should not be indulged. A litigant should not be rewarded for deliberately omitting from its pleading potentially dispositive information within its purview. This is precisely what the RGH Trust is doing here, as is demonstrated by its brief opposing the motion to dismiss at Supreme Court, which contended that, if Deloitte's argument were valid, "the [RGH] Trust should be permitted to amend its complaint to reduce the total number of bondholders to 50" (emphasis added).
In any event, it is, at best, disingenuous for the RGH Trust to take the position that it cannot now be determined whether the amended complaint asserts the claims of more than 50 bondholders. Deloitte brings to our attention, and the RGH Trust does not dispute, that the electronically accessible public records of the Reliance bankruptcy case show that RGH's voluntary petition estimated the number of beneficial holders of its notes "to be in excess of 500 holders." The bankruptcy record also includes the certification of the tabulation of votes on the reorganization plan, which states that 454 senior bondholders and 364 subordinated bondholders voted in favor of the plan. While it would have been preferable for Deloitte to place these bankruptcy court filings in the record on its motion to dismiss (and we hasten to add that we would reach the same result even if we were not aware of this material), it is well established that a court "may take judicial notice of undisputed court records and files" (Matter of Khatibi v Weill, 8 A.D.3d 485 [2004]). This principle extends to the uncontroverted public records of bankruptcy proceedings (see MJD Constr. v Woodstock Lawn & Home Maintenance, 293 A.D.2d 516, 517 [2002], lv denied 100 N.Y.2d 502 [2003]; Marcinak v General Motors Corp., 285 A.D.2d 387 [2001]; Two Guys From Harrison-NY v S.F.R. Realty Assoc., 186 A.D.2d 189 [1992]); cf. Property Clerk, N.Y. City Police Dept. v Seroda,
In view of the foregoing, there is no question that the RGH Trust is asserting the claims of more than 50 bondholders in this action. Indeed, the RGH Trust, rather than seeking to justify or excuse its failure to estimate the number of bondholders it represents, argues instead that the number of bondholders is irrelevant for either of two reasons. The RGH Trust's first argument in this regard is that the bondholder claims should be deemed to have been brought on behalf of the two indenture trustees for the two categories of bonds (senior and subordinated), not the bondholders themselves. Secondly, the RGH Trust argues that, under one of SLUSA's provisions, it is entitled to be counted as one person for purposes of determining this action's compliance with the statute. We reject both of these arguments.
The argument that this action is being prosecuted on behalf of the two indenture trustees (which the RGH Trust inappropriately raises for the first time on appeal) is belied by the amended complaint itself. The first paragraph of the amended complaint avers that the action is brought by the "RGH Liquidating Trust, on behalf of the general unsecured creditors of [RGH] and the general unsecured creditors of [RFS]," and the prayer for relief demands "judgment in favor of the general unsecured creditors of RGH and RFS." Similarly, a lengthy section of the pleading, entitled "The Creditors of RGH and RFS," identifies by subheading the four groups of creditors whose claims are asserted in this action; the "Bondholders" (but not the indenture trustees) are one of these groups. The amended
To recapitulate, SLUSA defines a "covered class action" as a single lawsuit in which "damages are sought on behalf of more than 50 persons or prospective class members" as to whose claims "common" questions of law or fact predominate (15 USC § 78bb [f] [5] [B] [i] [I]). Hence, given that the amended complaint neither alleges any injury to the indenture trustees nor seeks any damages on their behalf, the number of indenture trustees does not enter into the SLUSA analysis. What does matter under SLUSA is whether the number of Reliance bondholders—the allegedly injured parties for whom damages are sought—exceeds 50, and, as previously discussed, it does.
The RGH Trust's second argument on the SLUSA issue— that the RGH Trust should be counted as one person, regardless of the number of bondholders for whom it seeks damages— relies on the following provision of the Act, captioned "Counting of certain class members":
The RGH Trust takes the position that it is entitled to be treated as a single person under the above-quoted provision on the ground that it was not established solely or even (as the
The flaw in the RGH Trust's contention that it is entitled to be counted as a single person under SLUSA is that the Act excludes from single-person treatment any entity "established for the purpose of participating in the action," not only entities whose sole or primary purpose is to participate in the action. Specifically, the statute states that an entity "shall be treated as one person ... only if the entity is not established for the purpose of participating in the action" (15 USC § 78bb [f] [5] [D]). The word "purpose" is not modified in any way. Hence, if an entity was established for the purpose of participating in the subject action, it is irrelevant that the entity also has other purposes, or that participation in the action is not the entity's primary purpose.
The record in this case makes plain that the RGH Trust was, in fact, "established for the purpose of participating in th[is] action," among others. The amended complaint itself alleges that "the RGH Liquidating Trust has been established to pursue the claims of RFS, RGH and their respective creditors" (emphasis added). This allegation is borne out by the reorganization plan. Section 10.6 of the reorganization plan provides that, upon the plan's effective date,
To like effect, section 6.6 of the reorganization plan provides that, upon the plan's effective date, the RGH Trust
Moreover, it is of no moment that the reorganization plan does not refer specifically to the claims asserted in this action (i.e., the claims of Reliance's unsecured creditors against Deloitte), since those claims are plainly within the scope of the litigation the RGH Trust was created to conduct (see Cape Ann Invs. LLC v Lepone, 296 F.Supp.2d 4, 10 [D Mass 2003] [in holding that a trust created for the purpose of litigating claims contributed to it was not "one person" within the meaning of SLUSA, the court observed that "(t)he Trustee's argument that the Trust is a unitary entity because it was created not to pursue any particular action, but all `such actions as necessary to recover on behalf of beneficiaries,' makes no sense conceptually or legally"]).
The decision on which the RGH Trust primarily relies in arguing that it is entitled to single-person treatment under SLUSA is not to the contrary. While the Ninth Circuit stated in Smith v Arthur Andersen LLP (421 F.3d 989 [9th Cir 2005]) that it construed the relevant statutory language ("established for the purpose of participating in the action") to mean that an entity's" `primary purpose' is to pursue causes of action" (id. at 1007), that statement constituted dicta unnecessary to decide the case. This is because the Smith plaintiff was a bankruptcy trustee suing on the claims of the estate of the corporate debtor (Boston Chicken), not on behalf of a group of creditors (see id. at 1003 ["the Trustee is not attempting to assert claims that were assigned to him by Boston Chicken's creditors, but rather seeks to rectify injuries to Boston Chicken itself"]). Thus, whether litigation
In LaSala, SLUSA was held not to be implicated in an action brought by the liquidating trust for the estate of a bankrupt corporation (AremisSoft), the beneficiaries of which were the purchasers of AremisSoft stock (the Purchasers). As the LaSala court explained, "the Trust is not bringing its claims `on behalf of' the Purchasers, as SLUSA uses the term, because the Purchasers are not the injured parties; rather, the Trust is bringing the claims `on behalf of' AremisSoft" (519 F3d at 134), the defunct corporation, which had assigned the claims in question to the trust for the benefit of the Purchasers. In this case, by contrast, the claims of Reliance, the bankrupt debtor, have all been dismissed, and the only claims asserted in the amended complaint originally belonged to Reliance's numerous unsecured creditors, including the bondholders. This being the case, insofar as there are more than 50 bondholders, the maintenance of their claims against Deloitte in a single action offends SLUSA, which was
A scenario similar to the one here was presented in Cape Ann Invs. LLC v Lepone (supra), a decision that the RGH Trust mistakenly views as supporting its position. The Cape Ann action was prosecuted by a litigation trust created in the bankruptcy proceedings for NutraMax (296 F Supp 2d at 8). In addition to the claims of NutraMax itself, the trust asserted state-law claims against NutraMax's auditor that had been assigned to the trust by NutraMax shareholders (the Electing Shareholders). The court held that, since the trust's purpose was the prosecution of the claims contributed to it (id. at 10), and all other elements of SLUSA were satisfied, the action was barred to the extent it asserted the claims of the Electing Shareholders (id. at 12).
Contrary to the RGH Trust's contention, its position is not supported by SLUSA's legislative history. The report of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs states that SLUSA's definition of a "covered class action" was drafted
As the Third Circuit explained in LaSala, the above-quoted discussion demonstrates "Congress's clear intent not to reach claims asserted by a bankruptcy trustee on behalf of a bankruptcy estate" (519 F3d at 135 [emphasis added]). Again, in this action, the bondholders' claims against Deloitte are not being asserted on behalf of the Reliance bankruptcy estate; the claims originally belonged to the bondholders, not Reliance.
Moreover, the Senate report manifests Congress's intent that SLUSA not affect the power of an agent to bring suit on behalf of another person or entity where the power to bring such a suit is a necessary incident of an agency created by law to deal with the property of the other person or entity. Thus, as elucidated by LaSala, Congress did not intend that SLUSA would limit a bankruptcy trustee's power to sue on causes of action belonging to the bankruptcy estate.
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that SLUSA bars the assertion of the bondholders' claims in this single lawsuit. Accordingly, we need not discuss any of the remaining arguments raised with regard to the bondholders' claims.
On this motion addressed to the sufficiency of the RGH Trust's pleading, Supreme Court correctly declined to dismiss the claims asserted on behalf of the three categories of creditors other than the bondholders. Given that we are required to assume the truth of the amended complaint's allegations, and to draw all inferences in the pleader's favor, we conclude that the RGH Trust has sufficiently alleged that Reliance's 15 bank lenders, two identified former Reliance employees (David C. Woodward and Christine Howard), and the PBGC relied to their detriment on Deloitte's statements regarding Reliance's financial condition in the 1999 10-K and suffered losses as a result. To the extent it is alleged that the creditors' reliance on Deloitte's alleged misstatements took the form of forbearance from taking protective action, such alleged forbearance satisfies the reliance element of a fraud cause of action (see Foothill Capital Corp. v Grant Thornton, L.L.P., 276 A.D.2d 437, 438 [2000]). Whether the creditors' alleged reliance was reasonable in light of all of the information that was available to them, and whether such reliance, if reasonable, resulted in compensable losses, are questions of fact not susceptible to resolution on a motion to dismiss (id.).
With regard to the employee claimants, as previously noted, the amended complaint identifies only two such former Reliance the Reliance bondholders) of more than 50 holders of securities
Deloitte argues that SLUSA bars the employee claims to the extent the "pension and employee benefits" the employees failed to cash out consisted of securities traded on a national exchange. As Deloitte acknowledges, however, the extent to which these "pension and employee benefits" consisted of securities cannot be determined from the amended complaint or anything else in the present record. In view of the uncertainty as to whether the employees' claims relate to the purchase or sale of securities, and given that the claims of only two employees remain pending, dismissal of the employee claims based on SLUSA is not warranted at this juncture.
We have considered Deloitte's remaining arguments, including the claims that scienter and loss causation have not been sufficiently alleged and that the amended complaint is barred by this Court's decision on the prior appeal, and find them unavailing.
For the foregoing reasons, we modify the order appealed from to grant the motion to dismiss the amended complaint insofar as it asserts claims on behalf of holders of bonds issued by Reliance, and otherwise affirm the denial of the motion.
Accordingly, the order of the Supreme Court, New York County (Karla Moskowitz, J.), entered on or about November 13, 2007, which, insofar as appealed from, denied defendants' motion to dismiss the amended complaint with respect to claims
Order, Supreme Court, New York County, entered on or about November 13, 2007, modified, on the law, to grant the motion to the extent of dismissing the claims asserted on behalf of holders of bonds issued by Reliance, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.