The Supreme Court today said it would answer the California law question posed by the Ninth Circuit in Li v. ArcSoft, Inc. Justice Leondra Kruger was recused.
The question is, “Do the appraisal requirements of California Corporations Code § 1312(a) and the California Supreme Court’s decision in Steinberg v. Amplica, Inc., 729 P.2d 683 (Cal. 1986) (Mosk, J.) [42 Cal.3d 1198], preclude a shareholder from seeking buyout-related damages when the facts leading to the shareholder’s cause of action were not known until after the buyout was consummated?” (Link added.)
More about the case here.
The Supreme Court’s affirmative response is more in keeping with its usual expressions of comity than a couple of recent aberrations. Before today, the court had turned down two of the last four Ninth Circuit requests (not counting one request that’s still pending). In the long run, however, the court has been extremely accommodating, having now granted 23 of the last 26 requests, dating back to July 2018. Before the most recent rejections (in August 2023 and April 2024), the lone denial over the past six years had been in October 2019.
