In Liberty Bankers Life Ins. Co. v. Lenhard, a company sued its former chief executive officer and shareholder for breaching fiduciary duties and fraudulent statements regarding an agreement to transfer his stock in the company. No. 3:16-CV-2417-N, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19390 (N.D. Tex. February 6, 2019). The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims. Regarding the breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim, the court held that under Texas law, the plaintiff had to first show that the defendant owed a fiduciary duty. The court held that the plaintiff did not establish that the defendant owed a fiduciary duty because he was only acting in his capacity as shareholder in the transaction and not as an officer:

Continental has not established a fiduciary duty existed at the time of sale. While it claims Lenhard owed a formal fiduciary duty because he was owner and CEO of Continental, he was not acting as CEO when he decided to sell the company. Rather, he was acting as a shareholder, and shareholders do not have the same special automatic fiduciary status corporate officers hold under Texas law. In re Harwood, 637 F.3d 615, 620 (5th Cir. 2011). In addition, there is no evidence that Continental relied on Lenhard for the sort of moral, financial, or personal support that is required to establish an informal fiduciary duty under Texas law. Assoc. Indem. Corp. v. CAT Contracting, Inc., 964 S.W.2d 276, 288 (Tex. 1998). Indeed, this was purely an arms-length transaction between Lenhard and Liberty for Lenhard’s shares in the company. That Continental representatives may have particularly trusted Lenhard’s representations because of their previous relationship does not in itself mean he owed a fiduciary duty upon the sale. See Meyer, 167 S.W.3d. at 331. Accordingly, the Court dismisses Continental’s breach of fiduciary duty claim.

Id. at 10-11. The court dismissed the breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim.

Interesting Note: This court correctly analyzed the fiduciary-duty issue in the complex scenario of a defendant wearing multiple hats. Often the same party acts in different capacities, one or more of those being a fiduciary relationship. A plaintiff may want all of the defendant’s actions considered in the context of the fiduciary relationship. However, the defendant is entitled to have his or her actions judged depending on the hat that he or she is wearing in relation to the actions. For example, it is common for a trustee to also have a position in a company that is owned in whole or in part by the trust. The trustee’s actions regarding the company are not necessarily judged by the trustee’s fiduciary duties as trustee. The trustee’s job as a stockholder is to attend stockholder meetings, vote as an owner, and if necessary, raise shareholder derivative actions. That is pretty much it, and only those actions are judged by a trustee’s fiduciary duty of loyalty, care, etc. The trustee’s job as an operator of the business is judged, like any other business executive, under the business judgment rule, and the beneficiary of the trust may not have standing to complain about those particular actions. So, in fiduciary litigation, it is very important to fully understand what capacities a defendant is acting in and judge his or her conduct by the correct capacity and standard related to same.

Print:
Email this postTweet this postLike this postShare this post on LinkedIn
Photo of David Fowler Johnson David Fowler Johnson

[email protected]
817.420.8223

David maintains an active trial and appellate practice and has consistently worked on financial institution litigation matters throughout his career. David is the primary author of the The Fiduciary Litigator blog, which reports on legal cases and issues impacting the fiduciary…

[email protected]
817.420.8223

David maintains an active trial and appellate practice and has consistently worked on financial institution litigation matters throughout his career. David is the primary author of the The Fiduciary Litigator blog, which reports on legal cases and issues impacting the fiduciary field in Texas. Read More

David’s financial institution experience includes (but is not limited to): breach of contract, foreclosure litigation, lender liability, receivership and injunction remedies upon default, non-recourse and other real estate lending, class action, RICO actions, usury, various tort causes of action, breach of fiduciary duty claims, and preference and other related claims raised by receivers.

David also has experience in estate and trust disputes including will contests, mental competency issues, undue influence, trust modification/clarification, breach of fiduciary duty and related claims, and accountings. David’s recent trial experience includes:

  • Representing a bank in federal class action suit where trust beneficiaries challenged whether the bank was the authorized trustee of over 220 trusts;
  • Representing a bank in state court regarding claims that it mismanaged oil and gas assets;
  • Representing a bank who filed suit in probate court to modify three trusts to remove a charitable beneficiary that had substantially changed operations;
  • Represented an individual executor of an estate against claims raised by a beneficiary for breach of fiduciary duty and an accounting; and
  • Represented an individual trustee against claims raised by a beneficiary for breach of fiduciary duty, mental competence of the settlor, and undue influence.

David is one of twenty attorneys in the state (of the 84,000 licensed) that has the triple Board Certification in Civil Trial Law, Civil Appellate and Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

Additionally, David is a member of the Civil Trial Law Commission of the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. This commission writes and grades the exam for new applicants for civil trial law certification.

David maintains an active appellate practice, which includes:

  • Appeals from final judgments after pre-trial orders such as summary judgments or after jury trials;
  • Interlocutory appeals dealing with temporary injunctions, arbitration, special appearances, sealing the record, and receiverships;
  • Original proceedings such as seeking and defending against mandamus relief; and
  • Seeking emergency relief staying trial court’s orders pending appeal or mandamus.

For example, David was the lead appellate lawyer in the Texas Supreme Court in In re Weekley Homes, LP, 295 S.W.3d 309 (Tex. 2009). The Court issued a ground-breaking opinion in favor of David’s client regarding the standards that a trial court should follow in ordering the production of computers in discovery.

David previously taught Appellate Advocacy at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law located in Fort Worth. David is licensed and has practiced in the U.S. Supreme Court; the Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Federal Circuits; the Federal District Courts for the Northern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas; the Texas Supreme Court and various Texas intermediate appellate courts. David also served as an adjunct professor at Baylor University Law School, where he taught products liability and portions of health law. He has authored many legal articles and spoken at numerous legal education courses on both trial and appellate issues. His articles have been cited as authority by the Texas Supreme Court (twice) and the Texas Courts of Appeals located in Waco, Texarkana, Beaumont, Tyler and Houston (Fourteenth District), and a federal district court in Pennsylvania. David’s articles also have been cited by McDonald and Carlson in their Texas Civil Practice treatise, William v. Dorsaneo in the Texas Litigation Guide, and various authors in the Baylor Law ReviewSt. Mary’s Law JournalSouth Texas Law Review and Tennessee Law Review.

Representative Experience

  • Civil Litigation and Appellate Law