Some time ago, Lindie L. Banks, acting on behalf of a group of people similarly affected, filed a lawsuit against the Northern Trust Corporation, alleging that the financial services company had violated its fiduciary duty to its clients by mismanaging their investments. The United States District Court for the Central District of California held that Banks and her class were barred from bringing their claim under the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA).
But Banks appealed, and was vindicated! Writing for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge John B. Owens took issue with the lower courts reading of SLUSA, and held that Banks’ claim could advance.
And also he took a shot at the way the White Walker storyline was resolved on the final season of Game of Thrones, because this is serious stuff to be taken seriously.
The Night King comes up when Judge Owens is discussing how the lower court misread SLUSA in light of established case law:
Northern would like us to read Dabit without considering its clarification in Troice. But we will not render Troice meaningless the way that Game of Thrones rendered the entire Night King storyline meaningless in its final season. Troice directly supports our conclusion that a trustee’s misconduct – over which a beneficiary of an irrevocable trust has no control – cannot constitute misconduct “in connection with” the sale of covered securities where “the only party who decides to buy or sell a covered security as a result of a lie is the [trustee].”
You tell ’em, judge! Troice! Dabit! Night King!
Funnily enough, this isn’t the first time Judge Owens has referenced Game of Thrones in his opinions. In his opinion in the case of Flores v. City of San Gabriel, Owens noted that the court’s interpretation of one point was coming “very close to a qyburnian resurrection of [a rejected case law] standard.”
I am all for using the word “qyburnian” to describe people who are resurrecting the dead, whether it’s a corpse or a legal standard.
What will Judge Owens reference now that Game of Thrones is off the air? We’ll be glued to the Ninth Circuit’s docket to find out.
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h/t CNET
