Long Island Lighting Company v. Barbash
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
779 F.2d 793 (1985)
- Written by Katherine Li, JD
Facts
Matthews (defendant) launched a proxy contest for control of Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) (plaintiff) to urge public ownership of the utility. Matthews acquired sufficient shares of LILCO to demand a special shareholders’ meeting to consider his proposal. Matthews’s supporters published a newspaper ad. The ad accused LILCO of mismanagement and passing through the unnecessary construction costs of a nuclear power plant to consumers, and it asked for support for a campaign to have the public power authority acquire LILCO. LILCO alleged that the ad was unlawful, because it constituted a proxy solicitation without the filing of a proxy statement, as required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and that the ad was false and misleading. LILCO sought to enjoin any more solicitation of shareholders until the false statements were corrected and an appropriate SEC filing had been made. The discovery was abbreviated. The district court held that the ad did not constitute a proxy solicitation, because it appeared in a general publication and could only indirectly affect the proxy contest at LILCO.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Cardamone, J.)
Dissent (Winter, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 811,000 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.
