DMK BIODIESEL, LLC, A NEBRASKA LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, AND LANOHA RVBF, LLC, A NEBRASKA LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, APPELLANTS, V. JOHN MCCOY ET AL., APPELLEES.
No. S-14-150.
Supreme Court of Nebraska
Filed March 6, 2015.
290 Neb. 286
1. Summary Judgment: Appeal and Error. An appellate court will affirm a lower court’s grant of summary judgment if the pleadings and admitted evidence show that there is no genuine issue as to any material facts or as to the ultimate inferences that may be drawn from those facts and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
2. ____: ____. In reviewing a summary judgment, the court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the judgment was granted and gives such party the benefit of all reasonable inferences deducible from the evidence.
3. Statutes: Appeal and Error. Statutory interpretation presents a question of law. When reviewing questions of law, an appellate court resolves the questions independently of the conclusions reached by the trial court.
4. Securities Regulation. The Securities Act of Nebraska should be liberally construed to afford the greatest possible protection to the public.
5. Statutes: Appeal and Error. Absent a statutory indication to the contrary, an appellate court gives words in a statute their ordinary meaning.
6. ____: ____. An appellate court will not read into a statute a meaning that is not there.
7. Securities Regulation. Reliance is not an element of an investor’s claim against the seller of a security under
8. ____. A buyer’s sophistication is irrelevant to a claim under
Appeal from the District Court for Buffalo County: John P. Icenogle, Judge. Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Daniel L. Lindstrom and Nicholas R. Norton, of Jacobsen, Orr, Lindstrom & Holbrook, P.C., L.L.O., for appellees John McCoy et al.
L. Steven Grasz, Mark D. Hill, and Michael Schmidt, of Husch Blackwell, L.L.P., for appellee Renewable Fuels Technology, LLC.
Heavican, C.J., Connolly, Stephan, McCormack, Miller-Lerman, and Cassel, JJ.
Stephan, J.
DMK Biodiesel, LLC (DMK), and Lanoha RVBF, LLC (Lanoha), filed suit against John McCoy; John Hanson; Phil High; Jason Anderson (collectively the individual defendants); and Renewable Fuels Technology, LLC (Renewable), alleging the fraudulent sale of securities, in violation of
I. BACKGROUND
Republican Valley Biofuels, LLC (RVBF), issued a confidential private placement memorandum (PPM) with an effective date of May 7, 2007, seeking investors
[a]lthough we believe that our plans and objectives reflected in or suggested by such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we may not achieve such plans
or objectives. Actual results may differ from projected results. We will not update forward-looking statements even though we may undergo changes in the future.
In August 2007, DMK and Lanoha entered into separate subscription agreements and became minority investors in RVBF. In the agreements, each acknowledged the investments involved a high degree of risk. They further acknowledged they had sufficient knowledge and experience in financial and business matters to be able to evaluate “the merits and risks involved” in the investments. Each agreement states: “Subscriber has relied solely upon the information furnished in the [PPM] and Subscriber has not relied on any oral or written representation or statement, except as contained in the [PPM], in making this investment.”
In 2009, DMK and Lanoha brought an action against Renewable and the individual defendants in the district court for Buffalo County. In their operative complaint, they alleged that Renewable and the individual defendants, acting in concert as members and the manager of RVBF, made false oral representations and omissions in connection with RVBF and the proposed biodiesel facility which induced their investment. DMK and Lanoha asserted these actions violated the Securities Act of Nebraska (the Act)2 and violated fiduciary duties owed by the members and manager of RVBF. DMK and Lanoha further sought an accounting at law.
Renewable and the individual defendants filed motions to dismiss, which the district court sustained. DMK and Lanoha appealed, and we reversed.3
After the district court entered a judgment on the appeal mandate, Renewable and the individual defendants filed motions for summary judgment asserting they were not liable to DMK and Lanoha as a matter of law. The district court held an evidentiary hearing, after which it sustained the motions and dismissed the action. The court assumed for purposes of
its ruling that Renewable and the individual defendants “made the oral representations alleged by [DMK and Lanoha] during the period of time that [DMK and Lanoha] were contemplating their investment.” The court framed the issue as whether the “cause of action for security fraud [based on] misrepresentations made to investors is viable given the contents of the [PPM] and subscription agreements in which [DMK and Lanoha] acknowledge[d] that their investments were made without consideration of any representation not contained in the [PPM] or Subscription
[W]hen the sophisticated investor executes a subscription document stating that the “Subscriber has relied solely upon the information furnished in the [PPM] and Subscriber has not relied on any oral or written representation or statement, except as contained in the [PPM], in making this investment” the investor should be held to that statement.
DMK and Lanoha filed a timely appeal.
II. ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
DMK and Lanoha assign, restated and consolidated, that the district court erred when it (1) concluded that there were no genuine issues of material fact; (2) concluded that Renewable and the individual defendants were entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law; (3) failed to find that
III. STANDARD OF REVIEW
[1] An appellate court will affirm a lower court’s grant of summary judgment if the pleadings and admitted evidence show that there is no genuine issue as to any material facts
or as to the ultimate inferences that may be drawn from those facts and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.4
[2] In reviewing a summary judgment, the court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the judgment was granted and gives such party the benefit of all reasonable inferences deducible from the evidence.5
[3] Statutory interpretation presents a question of law.6 When reviewing questions of law, an appellate court resolves the questions independently of the conclusions reached by the trial court.7
IV. ANALYSIS
1. § 8-1118(1) Claim
[4] DMK and Lanoha claim Renewable and the individual defendants violated
(1) Any person who offers or sells a security in violation of section
8-1104 or offers or sells a security by means of any untrue statement of a material fact or any omission to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made in the light of the circumstances under which they are made not misleading, the buyer not knowing of the untruth or omission, and who does not sustain the burden of proof that he or she did not know and in the exercise of reasonable care could not have known of the untruth or omission, shall be liable to the person buying the security from him or her, who may sue either at law or in equity . . . .
We have few cases construing or applying this statute. In the most recent of these, Hooper v. Freedom Fin. Group,11 we affirmed a judgment determining that directors and a holding company of a broker-dealer which sold securities by means of untrue statements of material fact were liable to investors. In our opinion, we noted that the evidence established the stock in question was sold by means of untrue statements and that the purchasers “were unsophisticated investors who relied upon” the seller’s assurances that the stock was as described in a sales pamphlet, notwithstanding the pamphlet’s inconsistencies with the offering memorandum.12 However, we were not called upon in that case to determine whether reliance upon the alleged misrepresentation was an element of an investor’s claim under
(a) Reliance
[5,6] To determine whether reliance is an element of a claim under
appellate court gives words in a statute their ordinary meaning.13 An appellate court will not read into a statute a meaning that is not there.14 The Legislature has provided an additional tool to determine the meaning of the Act by directing that it “shall be construed as to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the law of those states which enact it and to coordinate the interpretation and administration of the [A]ct with the related federal regulation.”15
As noted, the Act is modeled after the 1956 Uniform Securities Act.16 Section
The Act imposes liability upon one who (1) “offers or sells a security,” (2) “by means of any untrue statement of a material fact or any omission to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made in the light of the circumstances under which they are made not misleading,” and where the buyer is (3) “not knowing of the untruth or omission.”19 It permits the seller to avoid liability by sustaining “the burden of proof that he or she did not know and in the exercise of reasonable care could not have known of the untruth or omission.”20
Thus, the statute contains no explicit requirement that an investor must prove reliance upon an alleged misrepresentation or omission by the seller in order to recover. The question is whether the phrase “by means of” implicitly requires a showing that the investor relied upon the seller’s misrepresentation or omission of material fact.
Various courts have held that similar language in
Most courts construing state laws derived from
statement or omission of material fact in order to recover.26 In reaching this conclusion, the Utah
A few courts have reached contrary conclusions, holding that reliance is an element of an investor’s claim under state blue sky laws. For example, a Washington appellate court has construed Washington’s antifraud statute to require reliance as an element of an investor’s claim.29 But unlike the Nebraska statute, the Washington statute was patterned after
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the court applied reliance principles drawn from that act and the related regulation commonly known as rule 10b-5. A Georgia appellate court reached the same result in interpreting a state statute patterned after the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.30
[7] Based upon the plain language of
(b) Sophistication of Investor
It is undisputed that DMK and Lanoha were sophisticated investors at the time of their investment in RVBF. DMK and Lanoha contend that for purposes of establishing liability under
The only phrase in the statute dealing with the investor’s knowledge at the time of the alleged misrepresentation is “the buyer not knowing of the untruth or omission.”31 Courts construing similar language in
Uniform Securities Act have held that it bars recovery only when an investor has “actual knowledge that a representation is false or knows that existing information has been withheld.”32 Courts have held that constructive knowledge is not a bar to a claim under
[I]f the legislature had intended to impose a duty of investigation upon the buyer, it would have expressly included such in the working of the statute. The proscriptions of [the Indiana statute], however, embrace a fundamental purpose of substituting a policy of full disclosure for that of caveat emptor. That policy would not be served by imposing a duty of investigation upon the buyer.35
[8] We agree with this reasoning and with the conclusion of other courts and commentators that a buyer’s sophistication is irrelevant to a claim under
access to information of the customer.”37 The same is true of
(c) Exculpatory Provisions
The district court also concluded that DMK and Lanoha should be held to the affirmation in their subscription agreements that they had not relied on any oral or written representation or statement except those contained in the PPM. DMK and Lanoha argue that this was error, because
The provision of the PPM upon which Renewable and the individual defendants, as well as and the district court, relied is sometimes referred to as an “integration clause.” The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts considered whether an integration clause in a subscription agreement barred an action under a Massachusetts statute similar to
Because we have concluded that reliance is not an element of a claim under
We conclude that the district court erred in entering summary judgment with respect to the
2. Other Issues
(a) Exhibits 12 Through 20
Renewable and the individual defendants argue that exhibits 12 through 20 were not received in evidence at the summary judgment hearing and should not be considered on appeal. The exhibits in question were offered by DMK and Lanoha over objections which were not ruled on at the hearing or, as far as we can tell, subsequent thereto. We have not considered these exhibits in our analysis of this appeal.
(b) Motion to Strike
Following oral argument of this appeal, Renewable and the individual defendants filed a motion to strike statements made by DMK and Lanoha’s counsel during oral argument as not supported by the record. Because we have not relied upon such statements, we do not consider whether or not they are supported by the record and overrule the motion as moot.
(c) Motion for Attorney Fees
At the same time DMK and Lanoha filed their opening brief on appeal, they also filed a motion for attorney fees pursuant to that portion of
That has not occurred in this case. Although DMK and Lanoha have prevailed on this appeal, they have yet to prove and obtain a judgment on their liability claim under
V. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the cause for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Wright, J., not participating.
