Ed Peters Jewelry Co., Inc. v. C & J Jewelry Co., Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
124 F.3d 252 (1997)

- Written by Kelli Lanski, JD
Facts
Ed Peters was a sales agent for a jewelry company called Anson (defendant). Anson was experiencing financial difficulties, and its creditor, Fleet Corporation (defendant) foreclosed on Anson’s assets and sold them to C & J Jewelry Co., Inc. (C & J) (defendant). Ed Peters sued Anson, Fleet, and C & J on behalf of his company, the Ed Peters Jewelry Co., Inc. (Peters) (plaintiff) to seek unpaid commissions, claiming that C & J was simply Anson reorganized under another name and therefore responsible for Anson’s liabilities, including Peters’s sales commissions. In support of this claim, Peters pointed out that C & J continued manufacturing the same products Anson made at the same facility and for the same principal customer, even announcing to Anson’s customers that it had retained Anson’s current employees. The lower court dismissed Peters’s claim, ruling that C & J was not liable for Anson’s debts. Peters appealed, claiming that the successor-liability doctrine meant that C & J, as the successor company to Anson, was liable for Peters’s commissions. C & J argued on appeal that the successor-liability doctrine did not apply because C & J had acquired Anson’s assets by foreclosure rather than a direct purchase.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Cyr, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 815,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.