Reynolds v. State of Ga.

• Decision Date: 26 March 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80-7197,80-7197
• Citation: 640 F.2d 702
• Parties: Marianne O'Brien REYNOLDS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE OF GEORGIA; George Busbee, Individually and as Governor of Georgia; et al., Defendants-Appellees. . Unit B
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 702

640 F.2d 702

Marianne O'Brien REYNOLDS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE OF GEORGIA; George Busbee, Individually and as

Governor of Georgia; et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 80-7197.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Unit B

March 26, 1981.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied April 28, 1981.

O'Callaghan, Saunders & Stumm, Richard L. Stumm, Gene B. McClure, B. Lee Crawford, Jr., Sharon J. Strange, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.

Patricia T. Barmeyer, Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., Bennet, Gilbert, Gilbert, Whittle, Harrel & Gayner, Wallace E. Harrell, Brunswick, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from a Judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Before FAY, HENDERSON and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Upon studying the briefs and the record in this matter and being fully advised through the argument of counsel, we affirm the judgment of the district court. Under date of February 14, 1980, the Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo, Chief Judge, entered a comprehensive order dealing with all of the issues raised here and since we are in complete agreement with the expressions contained therein we adopt it and attach it as an appendix.

We do add one comment. In dealing with the question of its jurisdiction, the trial court accepted plaintiff's interpretation of the Georgia Supreme Court's opinion in Reynolds v. Estate of R. J. Reynolds, 238 Ga. 1, 230 S.E.2d 842 (1976), as both erroneous and unpredictable. We find it to be neither. Although labeled as a "theretofore-unknown and retroactively-applied rule that ownership interests in securities do not arise until a transfer is recorded on the books of the corporation" (Plaintiff brief p. 16), an examination of the court's language reveals that the holding was merely one applying a long standing rule of pleading. "Under this ruling, the plaintiff was bound by the solemn and unstriken allegation contained in her petition, which was admitted by the answer..." Id. at 844, 230 S.E.2d 842. As the court stated:

Accordingly, those allegations of the plaintiff's complaint, which disclose ... cannot be disputed, nor can the allegation that the common stock was never transferred on the books of the corporation be disputed.

Id. at 844 and 845, 230 S.E.2d 842.

It is apparent that the Georgia Supreme Court was making reference to both allegations and uncontested facts contained in the pleadings. "The stock was not transferred on the books of the corporation, although Richard J. Reynolds told the plaintiff that it had been so transferred." Id. at 844, 230 S.E.2d 842. To equate this with an announcement that stock may only be transferred by transfer entries on the books of the corporation, stretches beyond even the broadest conceivable interpretations. We find nothing new or novel in the opinion.

Federal Courts are not designed to serve as additional appellate reviewers of State Court judgments. The dismissal is AFFIRMED.

APPENDIX

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

BRUNSWICK DIVISION

MARIANNE O'BRIEN REYNOLDS, * CIVIL ACTION

Plaintiff * NO. CV 278-111

V. *

STATE OF GEORGIA; et al., Defendants.

ORDER

In this case, plaintiff, Marianne O'Brien Reynolds, alleges that she has been deprived of her property without just compensation and without due process of law by an erroneous and unpredictable decision of the Georgia Supreme Court.

Based on a handwritten prenuptial agreement, executed in 1945, in which Richard J. Reynolds promised to assign to her all of the common stock in Sapeloe Plantation, Inc., in exchange for her promise to marry him, plaintiff claims to own all beneficial interests in approximately 16,000 acres of land situated on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Sapeloe Plantation, Inc. was sole owner of the land. Richard J. Reynolds was married at the time of the agreement. According to plaintiff, the stock was later delivered to her as promised. Afterwards, however, without her knowledge, Reynolds caused Sapeloe Plantation to convey the land to him. He then dissolved the corporation. Thereafter, he conveyed the land to defendants, the State of Georgia and several of its officials and agencies, or their predecessors-in-interest. Plaintiff now seeks to recover the land.

Plaintiff's action in this Court arises from earlier proceedings in State Court. In December, 1975, plaintiff brought an action in McIntosh County Superior Court against the State of Georgia and other individual defendants seeking, inter alia, to obtain possession of the land and to block a conveyance of a portion of the land to the State. On July 21, 1976, the Court granted Summary Judgment in favor of most of the defendants on grounds including illegality of the agreement, statute of limitations, accord and satisfaction, release, defendants' position as a bona fide purchaser, and sovereign immunity. On August 26, the State Court granted Summary Judgment in favor of other defendants.

Plaintiff appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, which affirmed the trial Court's grant of Summary Judgment in an opinion issued on November 3, 1976. See Reynolds v. Estate of R. J. Reynolds, 238 Ga. 1, 230 S.E.2d 842 (1976). In affirming the judgment of the Court below, the Supreme Court found two crucial facts to be undisputed. First, the Court found that "the common stock was never transferred on the books of the corporation." Id. at 4, 230 S.E.2d 844. Therefore the agreement to transfer the stock was purely executory. Secondly, the Court found that "the handwritten agreement between the plaintiff and Richard J. Reynolds was in consideration of the sum of $10 and the agreement of plaintiff to marry him at a time when he was then married to another person ...." Id. By encouraging the dissolution of an existing marriage, this agreement offended the public policy of the State of Georgia. Hence, the Court declined to order its enforcement. Id. at 4-6, 230 S.E.2d 845.

In a Motion for Rehearing, the plaintiff objected to the Court's apparent conclusion that the agreement was executory because the stock had not been transferred on the books of the corporation. Plaintiff argued that under the law in effect at the time of the agreement, delivery of the endorsed certificates or transfer on the books of the corporation was sufficient to transfer ownership in stock. Plaintiff alleged that a factual issue existed as to delivery. She urged, therefore, that it was inappropriate to conclude, as a matter of law, that the agreement had never been executed and, as a result, that she had never owned the stock. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court denied the motion.

Next, plaintiff petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a Writ of Certiorari. In her petition, she alleged that she had been deprived of her property without just compensation and without due process of law by the erroneous and unpredictable decision of the Georgia Supreme Court respecting the means of transferring ownership in stock. She also alleged that the Georgia Supreme Court, in holding the prenuptial agreement to be unenforceable because violative of the State's public policy favoring the preservation of marriages, denied her the equal protection of the laws, gave effect to an unconstitutional irrebuttable presumption, and offended the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court denied the Writ on April 18, 1977. 430 U.S. 968, 97 S.Ct. 1651, 52 L.Ed.2d 360.

Plaintiff filed this action on November 2, 1978. In addition to her steadfast assertion that the judgment of the Georgia Courts deprived her of property without just compensation and without due process of law, she also now asserts that the Courts' actions denied her procedural due process and a trial by jury. In this action, she seeks to set aside the judgments of the Georgia Courts as null and void, obtain a declaration of her rights to the land, recover damages for the violation of her Constitutional and Civil Rights in the amount of $10,000, and enjoin the defendants, the State of Georgia and several of its officials and agencies, from further interfering with her rights in the land. She invokes the jurisdiction of this Court under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Defendants have moved for Summary Judgment on several grounds, including lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, res judicata, lack of a substantial Federal question, Eleventh Amendment, sovereign immunity, and official immunity. This motion is now before the Court.

Having considered the pleadings, memoranda, and oral arguments offered by the parties, the Court finds the questions of its jurisdiction to be dispositive. Concerning that issue, the material facts are not in dispute. Also, for the purpose of testing its jurisdiction, this Court has accepted plaintiff's interpretation of the Georgia Supreme Court's opinion. Notwithstanding, the Court is constrained to conclude, for the reasons which follow, that plaintiff seeks a character of review and a form of relief that is beyond the jurisdiction of this Court. Accordingly, defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment must be granted.

At the outset, the Court recognizes that a State Court Judgment which violates settled legal principles may run afoul of the guaranties of the due process clause, especially if such a judgment has the effect of taking property from a citizen and giving it to the State. See Hughes v. Washington, 389 U.S. 290, 88 S.Ct. 438, 19 L.Ed.2d 530 (1967) (Stewart, J., concurring); Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust and Savings Co. v. Hill, 281 U.S. 673, 50 S.Ct. 451, 74 L.Ed. 1107 (1930); American Railway Express Co. v. Kentucky, 273 U.S. 269, 47 S.Ct. 353, 71 L.Ed. 639 (1927); Muhlker v. New York & Harlem R. R. Co., 197 U.S. 544, 25 S.Ct. 522, 49 L.Ed. 872 (1905); Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, 17 S.Ct. 581, 41 L.Ed. 979 (1897). However, the fact that an arbitrary judgment of a State Court may abridge the...