Thursday, April 13, 2006

Too many Lawsuits?

For better or worse, however, no limit exists on the number of lawsuits one individual can bring in a lifetime.

--Chancellor Chandler, in In re Fuqua Industries Shareholder Litigation, 752 A.2d 126 (Del. Ch. 1999)




Counsel for the [board of directors] point out in their [brief] that, "plaintiffs and their family appear to have been singularly unlucky investors--they are named plaintiffs in at least thirteen lawsuits (including this one) challenging allegedly improper conduct [citations omitted]." It is unclear what nefarious intent the defendant directors would have me infer from this statistic. While the Kahns' experience might qualify them as icons of Delaware corporate jurisprudence, in my view, their wisdom in forum selection should hardly subject them to a presumption of misconduct. But cf. [the judge sua sponte cites seven suits, "among others" in which the directors were named defendants].

--Chancellor Chandler in Kahn v. Icahn, 1998 Del. Ch. LEXIS 223 (Nov. 12, 1998), n.1.

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