O'Melveny & Myers v. FDIC, 512 U.S. 79, 4 (1994)

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82

O'MELVENY & MYERS v. FDIC

Opinion of the Court

in as receiver for ADSB,1 and on February 19, 1986, filed suit against Messrs. Sahni and Day in Federal District Court, alleging breach of fiduciary duty and, as to Sahni, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act violations. Soon after taking over as receiver, respondent began receiving demands for refunds from investors who claimed that they had been deceived in connection with the two real estate syndications. Respondent caused ADSB to rescind the syndications and to return all of the investors' money plus interest.

On May 12, 1989, respondent sued petitioner in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, alleging professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. The parties stipulated to certain facts and petitioner moved for summary judgment, arguing that (1) it owed no duty to ADSB or its affiliates to uncover the S&L's own fraud; (2) that knowledge of the conduct of ADSB's controlling officers must be imputed to the S&L, and hence to respondent, which, as receiver, stood in the shoes of the S&L; and (3) that respondent was estopped from pursuing its tort claims against petitioner because of the imputed knowledge. On May 15, 1990, the District Court granted summary judgment, explaining only that petitioner was "entitled to judgment in its favor . . . as a matter of law." The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, on grounds that we shall discuss below. 969 F. 2d 744 (1992). Petitioner filed a petition for writ of certiorari, which we granted. 510 U. S. 989 (1993).

1 For simplicity's sake, we refer to a "receiver" throughout, which we identify as the FDIC. The reality was more complicated. The first federal entity involved was the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), which was appointed conservator of ADSB in 1986 and receiver in June 1988. The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989, Pub. L. 101-73, 103 Stat. 183, abolished FSLIC, and caused FDIC, the manager of the FSLIC resolution fund, to be substituted as receiver and party to this case. See id., §§ 215, 401(a)(1), 401(f)(2).

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