Owens v. Jastrow

• Decision Date: 12 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–10928.,13–10928.
• Citation: 789 F.3d 529
• Parties: Bruce OWENS, Plaintiff–Appellant v. Kenneth M. JASTROW, II; Kenneth R. Dubuque; Ronald D. Murff; Craig E. Gifford, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

789 F.3d 529

Bruce OWENS, Plaintiff–Appellant
v.
Kenneth M. JASTROW, II; Kenneth R. Dubuque; Ronald D. Murff; Craig E. Gifford, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 13–10928.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

June 12, 2015.

789 F.3d 533

Eric Alan Isaacson (argued), Elton Joe Kendall, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, L.L.P., San Diego, CA, Mark Tamerlane Millkey, Samuel Howard Rudman, Esq., Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, L.L.P., Melville, N.Y., for Plaintiff–Appellant.

David J. Beck, Esq., Chad Flores, Esq. (argued), Marcos Rosales, Beck Redden, L.L.P., Houston, TX, for Defendant–Appellee Kenneth M. Jastrow, II.

William G. Whitehill, Joanne Early, Debbie E. Green, Joe B. Harrison (argued), Trial Attorney, Stacy R. Obenhaus, Gardere Wynne Sewell, L.L.P., Dallas, TX, for Defendant–Appellee Kenneth R. Dubuque.

Karl G. Dial, Esq., Attorney (argued), Casey Lee Moore, DLA Piper, L.L.P. (US), Dallas, TX, for Defendants–Appellees Ronald D. Murff and Craig E. Gifford.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before JOLLY, OWEN, and HIGGINSON, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

STEPHEN A. HIGGINSON, Circuit Judge:

This case arises out of one of the largest bank failures in United States history. In August 2009, in the wake of the financial and housing crises, Guaranty Bank's parent company filed for bankruptcy. Plaintiffs represent a putative class of former Guaranty stockholders whose equity interests were wiped out when Guaranty failed. They bring federal securities law claims against four former Guaranty executives, alleging that the executives made materially false and misleading statements regarding Guaranty's assets. The district court dismissed the claims. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Temple–Inland, Inc. (“Temple”) was a holding company that operated a packaging and manufacturing business and a financial services business, Guaranty Financial Group Inc., (“GFG”) which, in turn, owned Guaranty Bank (the “Bank”).¹ On November 29, 2007, Temple announced that its board of directors had approved a spin-off transaction that would leave GFG as independent owner of the Bank. According to plaintiffs, Temple decided to spin off Guaranty because it was concerned about Guaranty's solvency, and about various cross-default covenants that would jeopardize Temple's own solvency if Guaranty became insolvent. Plaintiffs allege that Temple did not provide Guaranty sufficient capital at the time of the spin-off.

Temple's concerns over Guaranty's solvency stemmed from the composition of Guaranty's asset portfolio. Guaranty had purchased investments in residential mortgage-backed securities (“MBS”), which are created by pooling mortgage loans into a trust. Guaranty's portfolio contained a significant amount of “non-agency” MBS—those issued by private institutions rather than government-sponsored entities. Non-agency MBS are generally understood to have higher returns and higher risks than their government-sponsored counterparts. Plaintiffs allege that Guaranty's non-agency MBS portfolio always constituted at least 22% of Guaranty's total assets. Further, plaintiffs allege that a substantial portion of Guaranty's MBS was collateralized by risky adjustable rate mortgages. On the other hand, none of Guaranty's MBS contained subprime mortgages. Guaranty also did not invest in the most junior tranches, or levels, of MBS, meaning that losses would not affect Guaranty's

789 F.3d 534

investments until investors in junior tranches lost their entire investment. Further, until June 2008, when certain MBS were downgraded or placed on negative watch, all of Guaranty's MBS were rated the highest level—AAA—by the major credit rating agencies.

Defendants Kenneth M. Jastrow, Kenneth R. Dubuque, Ronald D. Murff, and Craig E. Gifford were all high-level executives in Guaranty and, in some cases, Temple. Plaintiffs claim that after the spin-off, Guaranty, led by defendants, violated Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”) by systematically overvaluing its MBS portfolio and undervaluing its losses. Defendants allegedly compounded this problem by failing to properly record Guaranty's losses as “other than temporary impairment” (“OTTI”). Defendants reported these allegedly erroneous accounting figures in public filings. Plaintiffs claim that defendants were motivated by the knowledge that, absent fraud, Guaranty's regulatory capital would have been inadequate and Guaranty would not have had time to procure capital necessary to continue as a going concern.

For a time, Guaranty was successful in masking its financial difficulties; it attracted capital infusions in 2008. But Guaranty's health continued to decline. In July 2009, Guaranty announced that, at the direction of the Office of Thrift Supervision (“OTS”), Guaranty had amended its Thrift Financial Report for the period ending March 31, 2009 and recorded a $1.62 billion impairment on its MBS portfolio. Soon after, the OTS closed Guaranty and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) was appointed as receiver. GFG filed for bankruptcy protection on August 27, 2009.

On August 22, 2011, Guaranty's bankruptcy trustee, Kenneth L. Tepper, sued Temple and various other defendants, including Jastrow and Dubuque, alleging that they had raided over $1 billion in assets from Guaranty.² The Tepper complaint alleged that Temple and the other defendants “fraudulently strip[ped] [Guaranty] of assets beyond the point of solvency and adequate capitalization.” In November 2012, the Tepper action settled for $80 million.

Plaintiffs initially filed this putative class action on November 11, 2011. They filed an amended class action complaint on April 19, 2012 on behalf of all purchasers of GFG common stock between December 12, 2007 and August 24, 2009 (the “Class Period”), against Temple and the individual defendants. Temple and the individual defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint. The district court granted the motions on several grounds, including the failure to adequately allege defendants' scienter. The district court granted plaintiffs leave to amend, however, and plaintiffs filed the Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”), which alleged claims against the individual defendants alone. The individual defendants again moved to dismiss. The district court found that the SAC did not adequately allege scienter, and granted the motions, dismissing the case with prejudice. Plaintiffs timely appealed.

DISCUSSION

I. Standard of Review

The SAC alleges violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. § 78j(b), and Rule 10b–5 promulgated thereunder, 17 C.F.R. § 240.10b–5. Plaintiffs also allege control

789 F.3d 535

person violations of Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act. 15 U.S.C. § 78t(a). The elements of a private securities fraud claim based on Section 10(b) and Rule 10b–5 are “(1) a material misrepresentation (or omission), (2) scienter, i.e., a wrongful state of mind, (3) a connection with the purchase or sale of a security, (4) reliance, often referred to in cases involving public securities markets (fraud-on-the-market cases) as ‘transaction causation’; (5) economic loss; and (6) ‘loss causation,’ i.e., a causal connection between the material misrepresentation and the loss.”Lormand v. U.S. Unwired, Inc., 565 F.3d 228, 238–39 (5th Cir.2009) (quoting Dura Pharm., Inc. v. Broudo, 544 U.S. 336, 341–42, 125 S.Ct. 1627, 161 L.Ed.2d 577 (2005) ). Defendants argue that the SAC fails to adequately allege the material misrepresentation, scienter, and loss causation elements.

We review a district court's dismissal of federal securities law claims under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Income Fund, Inc. v. TXU Corp., 565 F.3d 200, 206 (5th Cir.2009). We accept “all well-pleaded facts as true and view[ ] those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.” Moffett v. Bryant, 751 F.3d 323, 325 (5th Cir.2014) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the plaintiff must plead enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Flaherty, 565 F.3d at 206 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b), plaintiffs must state all allegations of fraud with particularity by identifying the “time, place, and contents of the false representations, as well as the identity of the person making the misrepresentation and what that person obtained thereby.” Tuchman v. DSC Commc'ns Corp., 14 F.3d 1061, 1068 (5th Cir.1994) (internal citation and alterations omitted). Securities fraud claims brought by private litigants are also subject to the pleading requirements imposed by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (“PSLRA”). “[T]he PSLRA requires a plaintiff to identify each allegedly misleading statement with particularity and explain why it is misleading.” Lormand, 565 F.3d at 239 (citing 15 U.S.C. § 78u–4(b)(1) ). At a minimum, the PSLRA pleading standard incorporates the “who, what, when, where, and how” requirements of Rule 9(b). ABC...