Mills v. Electric Autolite Company/Concurrence Black

by Hugo Black

United States Supreme Court

396 U.S. 375

Mills  v.  Electric Autolite Company

 Argued: Nov. 13, 1969. --- Decided: Jan 20, 1970

Mr. Justice BLACK, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I substantially agree with Parts II and III of the Court's opinion holding that these stockholders have sufficiently proved a violation of § 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and are thus entitled to recover whatever damages they have suffered as a result of the misleading corporate statements, or perhaps to an equitable setting aside of the merger itself. I do not agree, however, to what appears to be the holding in Part IV that stockholders who hire lawyers to prosecute their claims in such a case can recover attorneys' fees in the absence of a valid contractual agreement so providing or an explicit statute creating such a right of recovery. The courts are interpreters, not creators, of legal rights to recover and if there is a need for recovery of attorneys' fees to effectuate the policies of the Act here involved, that need should in my judgment be met by Congress, not by this Court.

Notes