City of Miami General Employees’ & Sanitation Employees’ Retirement Trust v. C&J Energy Services, Inc.

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In this case, the plaintiff, a stockholder of C&J Energy Services, Inc. (“C&J”), was precluded from targeting a particular stockholder to pay a fee award when the alleged benefit redounded to the benefit of all stockholders.Here, Plaintiff sought an award of attorneys’ fees for Plaintiff’s alleged role in reducing the amount of cash that C&J needed to pay Nabors Industries Ltd. in connection with a certain transaction. The beneficiary of the price reduction was C&J and, indirectly, all of its stockholders. Plaintiff asked the court to require that the estate of Joshua Comstock, who was C&J’s CEO and chairman of the board, to pay the full amount of any fee award. The Court of Chancery denied Plaintiff’s application because (1) Defendants successfully rebutted the presumption that Plaintiff’s litigation efforts caused the price reduction; and (2) Plaintiff’s demand that Comstock’s estate - or any of C&J’s other directors - pay a fee award would be inequitable and was inconsistent with the rationale of the corporate benefit doctrine. View "City of Miami General Employees' & Sanitation Employees' Retirement Trust v. C&J Energy Services, Inc." on Justia Law