The Buhrke Family Revocable Trust v. U.S. Bancorp
- John Cronan
- 1:22-cv-09174
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In The Buhrke Family Revocable Trust v. U.S. Bancorp, Judge Cronan ordered the parties to address specific dismissal issues at oral argument.
The Buhrke Family Revocable Trust, the other parties in the case, and the proposed group of similarly situated plaintiffs were affected because the parties were required to address these issues at oral argument.
What happened
In The Buhrke Family Revocable Trust v. U.S. Bancorp, the court issued an order about the oral argument scheduled for March 5, 2024. The order did not decide the parties’ arguments for or against dismissal.
The court asked the parties to address how limiting the potentially misleading statements to paragraphs 106 and 107 of the amended complaint would affect whether those statements were important to investors. It also asked about the significance of alleged analyst reactions to a consent order and about whether the alleged misleading statements were statements of fact or opinion.
Judge John P. Cronan directed the parties to be prepared to address these issues at oral argument, in addition to their broader dismissal arguments.
The detailed version
- The Buhrke Family Revocable Trust v. U.S. Bancorp · No. 1:22-cv-09174
- John Cronan
- Feb. 26, 2024
Nature of the Order
This is an order concerning oral argument, not a decision on the motion to dismiss. The court instructed the parties to address several issues at the March 5, 2024 oral argument, in addition to their general arguments for or against dismissal.
Issues Identified by the Court
The court asked what effect a determination that only the statements alleged in paragraphs 106 and 107 of the amended complaint were actionable would have on materiality—the question of whether the statements would matter to a reasonable investor.
The court also asked what significance, if any, should be given to the alleged reactions of analysts to the consent order. It asked the parties to address that issue both assuming that paragraphs 106 and 107 contain the only actionable statements and without making that assumption.
Finally, the court noted that the lead plaintiffs’ briefing did not clearly identify which alleged misstatements were statements of fact and which were statements of opinion. Because the plaintiffs’ main theory was that the defendants’ statements were misleading through omissions, the court asked what effect that fact-versus-opinion distinction should have on its analysis.
Disposition
The court did not grant or deny dismissal, decide the materiality issue, or resolve the fact-versus-opinion question in this order. Judge John P. Cronan ordered the parties to be prepared to address the listed issues at oral argument.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.