Rufe Criticizes Prosecutors' Move, Sides With Federal Defenders

A federal judge admonished prosecutors in a case involving the contentious involvement of federal public defenders representing death-row inmates in state court proceedings.

DealBook: Judge Sides With Einhorn and Halts an Apple Shareholder Vote

Eduardo Munoz/ReutersDavid Einhorn of Greenlight Capital argues that Apple violated securities regulations by bundling shareholder proposals.

9:26 p.m. | Updated

A federal judge on Friday ordered Apple to halt collecting shareholder votes on a contentious proposal to change some of its corporate charter, handing a victory to the hedge fund manager David Einhorn.

The ruling issued Friday touches on a fairly narrow legal point. But it signals a clear victory for Mr. Einhorn, who has taken up a fight with Apple over using some of the $137 billion in its corporate treasury to make additional payouts to shareholders.

Mr. Einhorn’s hedge fund firm, Greenlight Capital, has sued Apple in Federal District Court in Manhattan, arguing that the company improperly tied together several shareholder issues to be put for a vote into one proposal. Such bundling violated rules set by the Securities and Exchange Commission, lawyers for the hedge fund argued.

At the heart of the hedge fund’s complaint was that Apple combined a plan to eliminate its ability to issue preferred stock without shareholder approval with two other initiatives that Greenlight favored. By allowing the vote to proceed, lawyers for the firm argued, Greenlight was being forced to vote against its own interests.

The judge overseeing the case, Richard Sullivan, firmly agreed with that interpretation.

“Given the language and purpose of the rules, it is plain to the court that Proposal No. 2 impermissibly bundles ‘separate matters’ for shareholder consideration,” Judge Sullivan wrote in his order. The judge said at a hearing on Tuesday that he was leaning toward Mr. Einhorn’s point of view on the matter.

His ruling comes just days before the company’s shareholder meeting next Wednesday. It will also prevent Apple from accepting shareholder votes on Proposal No. 2, which had included Apple’s plans to eliminate its preferred shares. Some shareholder rights advocates have contended that preferred shares have been used as an anti-takeover tactic by boards and have pushed for their elimination.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesTim Cook, the chief of Apple.

Mr. Einhorn’s bigger goal has been to persuade Apple to return some of its billions sitting in cash to shareholders as a way to unlock the company’s value. Greenlight Capital has contended that the company has far more cash than it will ever need, and that preferred shares could provide additional payouts worth about $61 a share, while still leaving the company with an enormous war chest.

“We know they embrace innovation and can recognize it when they see it, even if it isn’t the kind of innovation people usually think of when they think of Apple,” Mr. Einhorn said in a conference call with analysts on Thursday.

Mr. Einhorn said that Apple should issue preferred shares, that would augment a stock dividend and buyback program that the company already has in place.

Although Apple was once the stock market darling for its meteoric rise, in recent months, share prices have sagged.

In a statement on Friday, Greenlight praised the judge’s ruling. “This is a significant win for all Apple shareholders and for good corporate governance,” the firm said. “We are pleased the court has recognized that Apple’s proxy is not compliant with the S.E.C.’s rules.”

Apple will now most likely have to break Proposal No. 2 into its separate elements and resubmit them to a vote.

“We are disappointed with the court’s ruling,” said Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple. “Proposal No. 2 is part of our efforts to further enhance corporate governance and serve our shareholders’ best interests. Unfortunately, due to today’s decision, shareholders will not be able to vote on Proposal No. 2 at our annual meeting next week.”

Apple had argued that the plan in its entirety was actually shareholder-friendly, and enjoyed the backing of prominent investors like the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

Anne Simpson, the Calpers director of global governance, said in a statement: “We continue to support Apple in their efforts, and believe that the implementation of majority voting and shareholder approval for the issuance of new stock — preferred or otherwise — is worth waiting for.”

Ruling for Greenlight Capital in Battle With Apple

In a Shuttered Gasoline Can Factory, the Two Sides of Product Liability

Now, the lobbying group’s Institute for Legal Reform is showing a 30-second commercial that uses Blitz USA, a bankrupt Oklahoma gasoline can manufacturer, to illustrate the consequences of abusive lawsuits. The ad shows tearful workers losing their jobs and the lights going out at the 46-year-old company as a result of steep legal costs from lawsuits targeting the red plastic containers, according to the company and the institute.

The closing of the 117-employee operation this summer became a rallying point for proponents of tort reform. But the commercial ducks the complexities of the product liability cases surrounding Blitz by making no mention of the dozens of casualties linked to explosions while people used the cans in recent years. In interviews, the company and the lawyers suing it seek to frame the conflict in stark terms: devious lawyers with spurious claims piling on a valuable manufacturer, or a greedy company hurting consumers by refusing to fix a defective product.

The Blitz cases show the inherent conflicts “between makers of products that have some hazard or danger and consumers who on occasion are injured by those products,” said Marshall S. Shapo, an expert on product liability at Northwestern University School of Law. “It is an ancient rivalry that will go on forever.”

The suits generally make the claim that the cans were susceptible to “flashback” explosions caused when gasoline vapors outside the cans ignited and followed the vapor trail back into the container. The lawyers argue that the company should have installed “flame arrester” shields at the mouth of the containers to prevent explosions.

Blitz executives note that the company, which was the nation’s leading gas can producer, sold more than 14 million cans a year over the last decade, with fewer than two reported incidents per million cans sold. The company said the most serious incidents usually involved obvious misuse of the cans, like pouring gasoline on an open fire.

Frank J. Vandall, an Emory University law professor, said there was probably no way Blitz could have avoided at least some of the lawsuits, although he questioned why the company paid settlements if it thought it could win in court.

“There is no way you can avoid liability for a can like this,” Mr. Vandall said, “because there is going to be injury, and when there is injury, there is going to be lawsuits.”

Blitz has been sued 62 times since 1994, according to the company. Only two cases have made it to court; the others were settled or dismissed, or were unresolved at the time of the bankruptcy. The company says the cases cost it $30 million in legal fees. Insurance companies paid well over $30 million more in settlements and other payouts.

The gas can explosions can be powerful. In one case, two emergency workers heard an explosion more than two miles away. In a 2010 test, a federal fire research laboratory found that a two-gallon gasoline container could produce a flame jet 13 feet long.

Chad Funchess, a volunteer firefighter from South Carolina, was seriously burned over half his body in 2007 when he was filling up a chain saw in the back of his convenience store and the can exploded. In his lawsuit, Mr. Funchess said there was no open flame to set off the blast. But the company said the store was razed before it could investigate what happened. Mr. Funchess said his fiancée left him when he was hospitalized. The case was stayed when the company filed for bankruptcy, and is one of 36 cases still open.

In the one case Blitz lost, in 2010, a Utah jury awarded more than $4 million to the father of a 2-year-old girl killed when a Blitz can exploded after the father, David Calder, tried to start a fire in a wood-burning stove in his trailer home by pouring gasoline on the flame.