HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-31-05
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THE COURT:
We will let the record indicate
that the Court is in session in a discovery conference in
the matter of the Estate of Robert M. Mumma at
No. 21-86-398 Orphans' Court.
Present in the case is Robert
M. Mumma, II, representing himself, Brady L. Green, Esquire,
and Michael J. Riffitts, Esquire, representing Barbara McK.
Mumma and Lisa M. Morgan, Ivo Otto, III, Esquire, also
representing Barbara McK. Mumma and Lisa M. Morgan, and
Ralph A. Jacobs, Esquire, representing Barbara Mann Mumma.
At issue today are a Motion To Compel
Discovery filed on behalf of Robert M. Mumma, II, and a
Motion To Require Notice filed on behalf of Robert M. Mumma,
13 II. Why don't we deal with the discovery motion first?
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Mr. Mumma, do you want to put your position on the record?
MR. MUMMA: Yes, sir. Your Honor, my
position is that before we can proceed with this estate
THE COURT: Oh, I'm sorry.
I should also
indicate that Taylor P. Andrews, Esquire, Auditor, is
present in court. Go ahead, Mr. Mumma.
MR. MUMMA:
I have an inherit right as
beneficiary of the estate to review all of the estate
records, including bills paid to their attorneys, and review
the work that the attorneys did to earn that money, and I
have been denied that right since the inception of this.
They refuse to even give me a list of what the estate assets
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are, other than an accounting that they recently filed, but
over the course of the administration of this estate there
were more assets that had been sold off because they contend
that they were a part of Pennsy Supply Company, which owned
Kim Company and other assets, and was liquidated, and that
the estate got some portion of those, and they have
continued to sell those assets even though I have at least
an ownership interest, and in many cases I believe that when
the facts come out, I was the owner of the assets, and so I
think all of this auditing of the account that's been filed
is premature.
We've never had discovery to be able to go
through the books and records that they hold. They moved
into these corporations, took all of the -- when I say books
and records I'm going beyond now what would be the minute
books or the stock books.
I'm going to the contracts,
deeds, asset lists, that these corporations had. And I'm
entitled to see that. In the case of Pennsy Supply Company
I'm the senior officer. I'm a director and a shareholder,
and they refuse to even tell me where the corporate
documents are for me to look at.
THE COURT:
Do you have a copy of your
discovery request itself?
MR. MUMMA:
I don't think I need to make a
discovery request.
I think as a Vice President of a
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1 corporation and a director, I say tell me where the
2 documents are, I want to come and look at them. Mr. Green
3 refuses to even respond.
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THE COURT: There is no formal document
5 requesting discovery that you've filed?
6 MR. MUMMA: I don't think
7 THE COURT: Or were even served?
8 MR. MUMMA: No, because I don't think I need
9 to file -- as a Vice President of a corporation, I don't
10 think I'm required to file a lawsuit to get the corporate
11 documents.
12 THE COURT: Okay. Now, the other
13 representatives of the parties want to respond. Mr. Green.
14 MR. GREEN: Your Honor, I just -- out of the
15 interest of completeness, I feel like I should say there
16 were discovery requests served in the case. It does not
17 sound as though they encompass what Mr. Mumma is asking
18 about, which seems to be records not of the estate, or not
19 of the trust, but rather of corporations, which in my view
20 are sort of broader and different than what we're about in
21 this proceeding.
22 Our fundamental position with respect to
23 discovery, especially given the history that Mr. Mumma
24 referenced, is that it's virtually impossible for discovery
25 in this proceeding to go forward outside the context of the
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audit contest, and outside the contest of supervision by the
auditor. Our view is that, you know, for certain Mr. Mumma
has been given much information. We're very concerned that
the information that he will seek in discovery here will
range far beyond the issues that are properly before the
auditor, and if that's the case, then we get into an awful
lot of burden and information being exchanged and a lot of
work which doesn't go properly to an issue in this
proceeding.
Mr. Mumma, as the Court I'm sure is aware,
has other litigation, has over the years, and continues to,
and some of this discovery, frankly, we think is undertaken
or sought for those proceedings, and we think that absent
having the auditor sit down with the parties, define the
scope of the proceeding, and then come up with a plan for
how to approach discovery, what it should encompass and what
its timing should be, it's very, very hard to ensure that
the discovery that will be had will relate to this
proceeding and not some other proceeding or some
contemplated future proceeding.
THE COURT: And do you have a copy of what
discovery requests were served on you?
MR. GREEN: Your Honor, I do.
Unfortunately, it is lodged in my binder.
certainly hand it up.
I mean we could
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1 MR. MUMMA: Your Honor.
2 THE COURT: Wait. Let's do one thing at a
3 time.
4 MR. GREEN: And if Mr. Mumma wishes not to
5 proceed with this discovery, that's fine, but I didn't want
6 the record to be unclear.
7 MR. OTT: Your Honor, what I just laid on
8 your desk is a first set of requests for production and a
9 first set of interrogatories. There's a second set of
10 request for production, as well as a third.
11 THE COURT: Mr. Mumma, are you requesting
12 that these requests be responded to or are you asking for
13 something more at this time? Or something different, I
14 should say.
15 MR. MUMMA: Your Honor, I think when I
16 started this what I said is I have an inherit right to
17 information that they're withholding from me. That includes
18 the information from all these corporations that they took
19 the records, and I'm an officer, but beyond that, yes, we
20 did file these three motions.
21 THE COURT: Well, you served them.
22 MR. MUMMA: Yes. These three. What I'm
23 saying is I have an inherit right to other documents that
24 they're refusing to allow me to see. If I have to
25 file --
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THE COURT: That may be, but you're pretty
much confined in this type of motion to what you have asked
them for by properly served documents. In other words, I
don't -- I'm not in the habit of simply wholesale discovery
orders without requests in the form of properly served
documents upon the other side for specific information, and
I'm trying to determine whether you're requesting the
information in these documents that were properly served.
MR. MUMMA:
I'm clearly requesting all of
that, but before we go ahead with Mr. Andrews audit of this,
I believe there's other documents that were withheld from me
that are important to my preparing for the audit, and I
shouldn't have to come to court for.
THE COURT: Well, I don't think that's
I can't just order discovery off the top of my
correct.
head.
I need to have some basis for it in the form of
requests that have been served on the other parties and
responses to those requests, but I'm happy to look at these
documents and see what they request, and you can tell me
what you have not gotten from them.
MR. MUMMA: Nothing.
THE COURT: Have these documents been
responded to?
MR. GREEN: Your Honor, they have not, and
these documents were served or our responses were served at
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the same time we requested appointment of an auditor. We
got a first and a second and then a third, and again
consistent with our view that discovery in this Orphans'
Court matter should be limited to those matters to be
resolved by the auditor, and it's a fairly broad list of
matters, I don't disagree with that issue, we felt it was
appropriate for the auditor, in the first instance to
pass on these matters. So that would be our first position.
If Your Honor would like to go through --
THE COURT: Well, how would the auditor know
what your position is if you don't respond with objections
or responses as you feel appropriate?
MR. GREEN:
I guess what we envisioned was
that the auditor would set some timeframe at the outset, and
I don't mean to presume how Mr. Andrews would handle this
proceeding, but one of the things the parties would do would
be to set a timeframe for discovery, for the parties to
conclude that, to have some parameters on it in terms of
timeframe and numbers that could be served, and that sort of
thing. Set up a process and then it would be done in the
context of it, but our objections, to the extent that we
would have objections on the substantive nature, could be
evaluated relative to what was in place before the auditor
rather than against sort of just an abstract principle that
Mr. Mumma seems to be --
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THE COURT:
Mr. Jacobs, do you have a
2 position on this?
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MR. JACOBS:
Briefly, Your Honor, my client,
4 Barbara Mann Mumma, the daughter of the deceased, is not
5 interested in taking sides among family members, but she is
6 interested in seeing that all the relevant information gets
7 out on the table, and the legal consequences flow
8 accordingly.
9 As I understand Mr. Mumma's position this
10 morning -- or this afternoon, he seems to be focusing less
lIon the litigation discovery process, and more on what might
12 be termed a fiduciaries obligation to provide information to
13 beneficiaries, and as I understand it, he's saying that as a
14 beneficiary he's entitled to request fiduciaries give him
15 information about trust administration, estate
16 administration, including, for example, advice from counsel
17 about trust administration matters, and I think as a general
18 proposition, he's correct.
19 When it comes to even lawyers documents,
20 there may be some narrow documents which are privileged
21 vis-a-vis a beneficiary if they pertain to a specific
22 dispute between an estate and a beneficiary, but I think as
23 a general matter, what I perceive him to be asking for isn't
24 what we as litigators would perceive as a discovery request.
25 That being said, and acknowledging that I'm
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new to this case, I don't know that the issue he's bringing
before the Court, even if it could be couched as a petition
to compel the executrixes to provide information to a
beneficiary is specifically framed, and so I don't know if
Your Honor would be inclined to refer that issue to the
auditor.
I don't know if that's -- you know, that
would be appropriate, but certainly the notion of the audit
proceeding in the way a carefully managed lawsuit is managed
makes sense to me with the auditor setting some parameters
and some deadlines and being able to deal with these issues
in the context of either specific claims in dispute or
specific requests for information that are in dispute rather
than these abstract principles.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Andrews, do you
have an auditor's hearing scheduled yet?
MR. ANDREWS: No.
I asked all the
individuals who are now present to bring a calendar with
them today so that we could work to set up what would not
even yet be a hearing, but would be the first pre-hearing
conference that we could look to define the issues, and it
could be appropriate at that same time to discuss what
discovery is needed for the defined issues and decide how we
are proceeding.
MR. MUMMA: Your Honor, could I have an
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opportunity to complete my presentation?
THE COURT:
Sure.
MR. MUMMA: I believe that all the discovery
must be completed prior to any proceedings by an auditor.
In one of his responsive pleadings Mr. Otto stated that the
appointment of an auditor was necessary before the
completion of discovery. I find that position to be
absolutely contrary to the law, which states that the
appointment of an auditor, prior to the completion of
discovery, is premature, and that's in the matter of the
Estate of Rosenbloom, which I presented to the Court at the
prior hearing.
THE COURT:
MR. MUMMA:
Do you have a cite for that case?
I do.
It's 459 Pa. 201, 328 A.2d
158, 1974.
cite.
THE COURT: What court is that?
MR. MUMMA: I'm not sure.
THE COURT: It sounds like a pennsylvania
It sounded like it would be the Supreme Court, if I
understood the citation.
MR. GREEN: It is.
THE COURT: The last number didn't sound like
a page number.
MR. GREEN: I thought he was giving the
Atlantic -- 328 Atlantic 158.
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THE COURT: 158.
MR. MUMMA: Your Honor, I have a copy.
THE COURT: That's all right. Mr. Andrews,
when do you envision your first pre-hearing conference?
MR. ANDREWS: It depends on people's
calendars. I would hope that it would be within the next
30 days, if possible. If not, at least the next 45 days.
MR. MUMMA: Your Honor, if I may finish.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
MR. MUMMA: Since the auditor has certain
time limits in which to complete his report, and since I
might waive objections to the accounting, unless I make them
to the auditor, it is essential for discovery to be
completed prior to the auditor's hearings.
THE COURT: Well, you're not saying
MR. MUMMA: Rosenbloom states
THE COURT: Are you saying the auditor can't
even hold a pre-hearing conference?
MR. MUMMA:
It's not in front of him, as far
as I'm concerned.
I'm still working on my objections to the
account.
THE COURT: Oh, I see.
MR. MUMMA: Documents sought on discovery
relating to a trust are relevant to the subject matter of an
audit of the trustee's account and may substantially aid in
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1 preparation of objections to the account. We've been given
2 nothing.
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THE COURT: All right. We'll enter this --
MR. MUMMA: So I'm saying that if Mr. Andrews
wants to hold an audit, fine, but let me finish doing the
discovery so that I can present everything to him and not be
told oh, by the way, you didn't raise that before, so that's
out of here. That's what they're trying to do, rush this
thing to a judgment before I have an opportunity --
THE COURT: The estate was open in 1986.
MR. MUMMA: But now all of a sudden, bang,
things are going to happen like this, and in 19 years of
administration I'm not allowed to even review what they did
before we have an audit of it.
my objections.
I can't even properly file
Well, objections have been
THE COURT:
filed, have they not?
MR. MUMMA: But not complete. We reserved
the right to add to those or amend those after discovery and
we get the books and records and see what really happened.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. MUMMA: The primary interest here that I
have is what assets do they even put into this estate and
how did they get there?
THE COURT:
All right. We'll enter this
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1 order:
2 AND NOW, this 4th day of April, 2005, upon
3 consideration of the Motion To Compel Discovery filed on
4 behalf of Robert M. Mumma, II, now representing himself, and
5 following a conference in the chambers in which Brady L.
6 Green, Esquire, Michael J. Riffitts, Esquire, and Ivo v.
7 Otto, III, Esquire, represented Barbara McK. Mumma and Lisa
8 M. Morgan, Ralph A. Jacobs, Esquire, represented Barbara
9 Mann Mumma, and Robert M. Mumma, II, appeared pro se, it is
10 ordered and directed that the executrixes/trustees, within
11 20 days of today's date, file responses to the Objector's
12 First Set of Request for Production of Documents to the
13 Executrixes/Trustees, the Objector's First Set of
14 Interrogatories to Executrixes, Robert M. Mumma, II's,
15 Second Set of Requests for Production of Documents to the
16 Executrixes/Trustees, and Robert M. Mumma, II's, Third Set
17 of Requests for Production of Documents to the
18 Executrixes/Trustees, and that the auditor, within 45 days
19 of today's date, hold a pre-hearing conference among the
20 interested parties for purposes of recommending an order
21 with respect to any further discovery in the case and with
22 respect to any issues presented by the responses of the
23 executrixes/trustees to the discovery requests.
24 By the Court,
/s/
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J. Wesley Oler, Jr., J.
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THE COURT:
I think probably we should make
these requests a part of the record, if, Mr. Otto, you don't
mind losing your copies. We'll have these four items marked
as Court's Exhibits 1, 2, 3, and 4 for purposes of the
record of this proceeding.
(Whereupon, Court's Exhibits 1 through 4 were
marked for identification.)
THE COURT: Court's Exhibits 1, 2, 3, and 4
will be admitted.
(Whereupon, Court's Exhibits 1, 2, 3, and 4
were admitted into evidence.)
THE COURT: Mr. Mumma, is there an address in
addition to your Bowmansda1e address that you would like
documents sent to, and, if so, what is that?
MR. MUMMA: It would be the Sohonage &
Christopher -- I have a post office box. I don't have that
with me. I'll have to call the Court.
THE COURT: Well, does any counsel have their
address?
MR. OTTO:
I think it may be evidenced in the
exhibits, Your Honor.
MR. MUMMA:
480. P.O. Box 480, Camp Hill,
PA, 17001, and they have a phone number.
THE COURT: 17001 or 17011?
MR. MUMMA: This says 17011.
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1 THE COURT: Okay. And, again, the name of
2 the firm is?
3 MR. MUMMA: Sohonage & Christopher.
4 THE COURT: All right. And you're requesting
5 a courtesy copy of the orders be sent to them as well as to
6 you at the Bowmansdale address?
7 MR. MUMMA: Yes, sir. So if I'm out of town,
8 they'll get it.
9 THE COURT: All right. Now, the second --
10 MR. MUMMA: Your Honor, can I add one thing
11 to this?
12 THE COURT: Certainly.
13 MR. MUMMA: With regards to the second part
14 of the order for this here, we filed a request that all of
15 this audit be stayed until the completion of discovery,
16 which was denied, and I would like the Court to, under title
17 42 Section 702(B) to declare that I can file an
18 interlocutory appeal of this matter at this time.
19 THE COURT: I'm not prepared to do that.
20 MR. MUMMA: I would like to put that request
21 on the record.
22 THE COURT: Well, that's not a proper way to
23 request that. We don't do those orally, and to the extent
24 that you're making an oral motion for an interlocutory
25 appeal, it is denied. For me to certify that this should be
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1 heard, even though it's interlocutory, by an appellate
2 court, that request is denied.
3 The second motion is to require notice, and
4 this is a request on behalf of Mr. Mumma that notice be
5 given to all beneficiaries prior to any disposition of any
6 estates. Is there a response to that motion? Mr. Green.
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MR. GREEN:
Our position, Your Honor, is that
8 -- first of all, that this is not the first time that
9
Mr. Mumma has made such a request.
Over the years he has
10 asked indirectly by claiming he has a right of first refusal
11 to purchase various estate controlled or owned assets.
12 More recently in front of Judge Hoffer he asked for
13 essentially an injunction of any sale of assets without
14 notice to the parties for an opportunity for himself to
15 purchase. In essense Mr. Mumma, I think, is attempting to
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freeze the estate.
He is attempting to preclude any sale or
disposition of any assets.
That seems to me to be an
18 unreasonable request under the facts and also under the law.
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THE COURT:
Well, in this motion all
20 Mr. Mumma seems to be asking for is notice of a disposition
21 -- of a proposed distribution of any assets.
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MR. GREEN:
Your Honor, the difficulty with
23 that, as we've learned over the years, is that notice
24 amounts to an attempt by Mr. Mumma to intercede and prevent
25 the sale or disposition of the assets or it at least raises
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1 that possibility, and the difficulty there is that, of
2 course, Mr. Mumma is not bound by any fiduciary duties with
3 respect to the assets or the estate, he does not have to
4 worry about whether the sale of an estate property is
5 appropriate because the estate needs cash to fund operations
6 of another property or what have you. He's not charged
7 with any of the burdens, but seeks to interrupt or interfere
8 in the discretion of the executrixes and the trustees in
9 trying to do their jobs.
10 If, in fact, they perceive wrongly, sell a
11 property which they shouldn't have sold or sell it for less
12 than they should have, that's what a surcharge action is all
13 about, and that's the remedy that the law provides for
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someone who is aggrieved in that fashion.
It really does
15 not -- the law does not allow for beneficiaries -- and we in
16 fact, contest whether Mr. Mumma is, in fact, a beneficiary
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of the trust for grounds that we have raised in the past,
but even if that were true, he's not entitled to -- as a
beneficiary, to begin to direct or have interaction with the
administration of these assets.
If, in fact, Mr. Mumma
would like to purchase something he can always make an
offer, and this was Judge Hoffer's conclusion.
I mean if there is a particular piece of real
estate that Mr. Mumma wants to know whether he can purchase,
all he needs to do is make an offer, but for -- to place him
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1 in the position effectively of being able to veto
2 transactions is really giving him more right and power than
3 he's entitled to under the will.
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THE COURT:
Okay. Mr. Jacobs, do you have a
position on this?
MR. JACOBS: Yes, Your Honor.
I think, in
general, providing beneficiaries with a reasonable amount of
information is useful. As they say, sunlight is the best
disinfectant. I don't understand Mr. Mumma to be asking for
any veto power. He's only asking for information, and as I
understand it, the fiduciaries would be legally entitled to
proceed with whatever transaction they're contemplating,
unless and until the Court says otherwise.
It seems to me, unless I don't appreciate the
other burdens, that there's really no harm in requiring
information, at least about substantial transactions.
There may be some diminimous or ordinary course of business
ones that wouldn't warrant notice, but at this point I don't
see what the harm is.
THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Mumma, do you want to
support your position?
MR. MUMMA:
I'll give you two examples, Your
Honor. One took place within the last 6 months. It was a
sale of 100 some plus acres on Mi11fording Road in Silver
Spring Township. The sale -- the claim was that the
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property was owned by DE Distribution, which is a
corporation of which I am a shareholder, okay, supposedly.
They refused 2 years ago -- 2 years I've been
asking for information on what assets DE Distribution owns.
They refuse to provide it to me. So then they go and they
sell this asset, and they do it not as executors of an
estate, but as executors of an estate that own the majority
of the shares in DE Distribution, where I do have
shareholders records, and I would have an interest in buying
this asset.
So even corporations, if they have a
controlling interest, we would like to know what the assets
are that they have, and what anticipated sales are because
we ought to be able to bid on them too. We have an
advantage, we already own part of them. And as long as they
get the same number of dollars, what difference do they care
who they sell it to? They ought to be trying to sell it to
the beneficiaries.
The better example of this is the Union
Quarries over here on Bonnybrook Road.
Union Quarries was
stock that they contend was legally transferred to the
estate. We heard that in front of Judge Sheely. Arthur
Klein from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius came into this Court, the
Orphans' Court, and told Judge Sheely that the reason all
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those shares should be put into Union Quarries was so that
everything would be kept together for the benefit of the
beneficiaries, and nothing would be able to be taken out and
sold out of it.
Two years ago they took one of the Union
Quarries, the nearest quarry to my other quarry in Dauphin
County, competitors of a quarry that would have substantial
interest to me, and sold it without coming back into this
Court and getting permission. They told this Court they
wouldn't do that, and, so, yes, if I would have known about
it I would have been in here and said that I -- they've
already represented to Judge Sheely they're not going to do
this. So at some point I feel that all we're asking for is
let us know so that if we do want to object, we can object,
or if we want to make an offer we can do that, but these
assets, we already own a portion of it.
THE COURT:
What authority do you have for
me to order the executrixes to give notice to you of a sale?
MR. MUMMA: Because I'm a shareholder in
these corporations they control, and they refuse to do it.
Do you have any cases on this
THE COURT:
point?
MR. MUMMA:
send you a brief.
THE COURT:
Not with me. I'll be glad to
All right. Anything else on
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this subject?
MR. GREEN: Your Honor, if I might, the
difficulty is that the history has been that properties
subject to any sort of a notice or whatever become
unsellab1e. No buyer wants to touch it because this is what
they know, that there's litigation, that there are issues
and so forth, and it basically makes properties unsellable.
That's the burden that's imposed on the executrixes.
I can
certainly speak to the situations that Mr. Mumma described,
neither of which I think are quite as he represented them,
but I will if Your Honor would like to hear about those
situations.
THE COURT:
Perhaps you should make the best
record you can.
MR. GREEN: The issue with respect to the
property owned by DE Distribution Corp, I really am not
terribly familiar other than to know that we have, on
numerous occasions, provided Mr. Mumma and/or his counsel
with information regarding the assets owned by DE
Distribution Corporation from the time of its creation in
July of 1993. There has never been any mystery about DE's
ownership of those assets.
And the schedules associated with the sale of
the balance of the business back in 1993 disclose the
properties that were retained, and we also responded
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thereafter to requests from Mr. Mumma's counsel to assist
them in understanding what real estate the family still
owned.
referenced
The Union Quarry situation Mr. Mumma
Union Quarries is a corporation half owned by
the estate of Robert M. Mumma or by the Mumma family, let's
say, and half owned by the Hempt family. The concern was
that if the union -- the Mumma 50 percent stock ownership
was not kept intact, that any holder of a single share could
run and sell that share to the Hempts, give the Hempts a
majority, and so the concern was that the Mumma share ought
to be kept as a block, as well to preserve its value.
The transaction that Mr. Mumma's talking
about was a decision by that corporation, which is only half
owned by the Mumma family, to sell one of its pieces of real
estate. Union Quarry stock was sold. The representation
that that stock would be kept as a block was maintained, but
the management of the Union Quarries business and the stock
is held through trusts not by the families directly because
of any trust concerns, the management of the company decided
to sell one of its properties.
It's not a sale by the executrixes, it's not
a sale -- a proffer of sale or an asset owned by the estate.
It's a corporate position by Union Quarries half subject to
the Hempt family to do something that was decided to be in
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1 the best interests of the corporation, and I think it's fair
2 to say that if anyone thought there was an advantage to
3 seeking -- to have Mr. Mumma purchase that stock, certainly
4 the Hempt family had no interest in not allowing that
5 opportunity, and certainly our clients had no interest in
6 that opportunity, but the fact of the matter is the decision
7 was made to sell that property, but it was not an estate
8 asset as Mr. Mumma has maintained.
9 THE COURT: All right. Mr. Mumma, did you
10 want to respond?
11 MR. MUMMA: Yeah, I do. He's misleading the
12 Court, and I really resent the fact that I even have to take
13 the time to explain it to you. He refers to
14 DE Distribution and the schedules and everything else back
15 in 1993, but the last financial statement I got from DE
16 Distribution was in the year 2003. And they sent a
17 specific letter along saying if you have any questions about
18 the assets, who owns them, what's been sold -- because there
19 was a million dollars worth of transactions, sales of assets
20 that they didn't list what the assets were, send a letter to
21 the accountant and he'll respond to everything.
22 So I sent the letter to the accountant, and
23 in his deposition he says I was told not to respond to your
24 letter. So they're not being clear about this. Mr. Green
25 was at the deposition. He knows that they're withholding
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1 the information, yet he just tells you, well, we're giving
2
everything he asked for.
I will provide you with the pages
3 from the deposition.
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THE COURT: Mr. Green, did you want to
5 respond to that?
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MR. GREEN:
I was, in fact, at the
7 deposition. My recollection was that when asked if he's
8 ever been instructed not to give information to Mr. Mumma,
9 his answer was no, but the record certainly on that issue
10 will speak for itself.
11
THE COURT: All right. We'll enter this
12 order:
13 AND NOW, this 4th day of April, 2005, upon
14 consideration of the motion filed on behalf of Robert M.
15 Mumma, II, requesting an order directing that the estate and
16 trusts involved in the above-captioned matter provide notice
17 to all beneficiaries before disposing of any assets is
18 denied.
19 By the Court,
Isl
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J. Wesley Oler, Jr., J.
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MR. MUMMA: Your Honor, is that an
23 interlocutory order?
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THE COURT: Yes.
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MR. MUMMA: Can I request that we can appeal
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1 that?
2 THE COURT: Again, this is not the proper way
3 to request it.
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MR. MUMMA: They're selling assets that I
already own.
THE COURT: All right. Those are the orders
on these two matters.
Court is adjourned.
MR. MUMMA: Your Honor, can I ask -- make one
more motion?
THE COURT:
MR. MUMMA:
Certainly.
I moved last time, and I would
like to make a request that the Judge recuse himself with
the specific reason of the closeness to the law firm of
Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius, which his father was a partner,
and I believe that that is too close. You, yourself, raised
this issue in the Pennsy Supply case, and in the pennsy
Supply case Morgan, Lewis was not an active participant.
Mr. Green was a witness, but they were not an active
participant in that case.
In this case they are the attorneys for the
estate. They are also defendants in a lawsuit that I've
filed claiming that they in the estate have conspired to
devoid me of my interest in these properties, and I just
think that's too close of a relationship.
THE COURT:
Well, I will state for the
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record that my father was a partner in Morgan, Lewis &
Bockius. He died quite a number of years ago at this time.
My mother has since died as well, and I don't perceive that
there is any conflict. I certainly did notify all of the
parties in that other case of the -- of that sltuation that
my father had been a partner, but I have no association with
the firm, I have no acquaintance with any of the counsel
from the firm, other than what I've seen through these
cases, and I don't see a justification for recusing myself
at this time. Mr. Green, what is your position?
MR. GREEN: Your Honor, I recall at that time
having checked a date on your father's departure from
Morgan, Lewis.
I can't at this time remember what it was.
It seems to me it was many number of years ago.
I cannot
obviously speak to your connection with or feelings about
the firm.
I don't perceive anything, on what little I know,
that would lead me to believe a recusal would be necessary.
THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs.
MR. JACOBS: I have no objection.
THE COURT: I don't recall when he retired.
It might be wise to get on the record the date of that
retirement. We'll take a short recess, and I'll ask my
secretary to call Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Philadelphia
and try to find out what year that was.
MR. GREEN: I can probably do that, Your
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1 Honor.
2 THE COURT: All right. We'll take a brief
3 recess.
4 (Whereupon, a recess was taken at 2: 48 p. m. ,
5 and court resumed at 2:52 p.m.)
6 THE COURT: We will let the record indicate
7 that the Court has reconvened in chambers. Mr. Green, did
8 you find out the date when my father retired from Morgan,
9 Lewis & Bockius in Philadelphia?
10 MR. GREEN: I did. I was advised by our HR
11 folks that your father terminated at Morgan, Lewis September
12 30, 1974.
13 THE COURT: All right. And as I indicated,
14 my mother has since died -- well, my father has since died
15 and so has my mother. All right. Court is adjourned.
16 (Whereupon, the proceedings concluded at 2:53 p.m.)
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e
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CERTIFICATION
I hereby certify that the proceedings are
contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by me on
the above cause, and that this is a correct transcript of
same.
(7]~IJ~
Michele A. Eline
Official Court Reporter
The foregoing record of the proceedings on
the hearing of the within matter is hereby approved and
directed to be filed.
gt1}i
Date
2'lf 2o~..s.-
1
Wesley Oler, Jr., J.
inth Judicial District
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