Meiselman v. Meiselman
North Carolina Supreme Court
309 N.C. 279, 307 S.E.2d 551 (1983)
- Written by Rich Walter, JD
Facts
H.B. Meiselman owned several corporations. H.B. passed ownership of these corporations to his sons, Michael Meiselman (plaintiff) and Ira Meiselman (defendant). On religious grounds, H.B. objected to Michael's conduct and gave the majority of the corporate shares to Ira. Both Michael and Ira worked for family-owned close corporations. Ira was also the sole owner of a company he hired to manage the family corporations, diverting profits from those corporations to the management company. This reduced Michael's profits. Michael sued Ira for breach of fiduciary duty and sought two equitable remedies. Ira then terminated Michael's corporate employment and benefits. Trial evidence suggested the brothers' relationship was acrimonious and that Ira permitted Michael a minimal voice in family corporate affairs. The trial judge denied equitable relief, finding Michael failed to show that Ira egregiously abused or took unfair advantage of him. Michael appealed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial judge, granting one of the remedies Michael sought and remanding the case for a new hearing on the other remedy. The court of appeals judgment was not unanimous, so Ira and the family corporations were automatically entitled to appeal to the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Frye, J.)
Concurrence (Martin, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 803,000 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.
