Last week I published a blog post on the US Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Bullock v. BankChampaign, N.A., No. 11-1518 (May 13, 2013) (pdf), that focused on the Court’s application of the noscitur a sociis canon to the bankruptcy nondischargeability statute dealing with “defalcation in a fiduciary capacity.”
I write this second blog post discussing Bullock because I think the case will prove especially noteworthy for those who deal with the concept of “recklessness” in their civil practice.
Professor Ann Morales Olazábal authored an article entitled Defining Recklessness: Doctrinal Approach to Deterrence of Secondary Market Securities Fraud, 2010 Wis. L. Rev. 1415, in which she looked at attempts to define “recklessness” in tort, criminal, patent, securities, and employment law (among others) and concluded that “the single common thread among the recklessness standards employed in this mixed bag of legal inquiries may be their opacity and lack of susceptibility to any kind of uniform application.” Id. at 1422. In the federal securities context, she writes, “[a]s in other legal arenas, recklessness in the 10(b) context has nowhere been defined serviceably or with any real consistency.” Id. at 1424.
In What Is Securities Fraud?, 61 Duke L.J. 511, 534-36 (2011), Professor Sam Buell wrote that courts in the securities law context differ on whether recklessness should be defined by a “conscious disregard” or a “super-negligence” standard:Continue Reading US Supreme Court’s Decision in Bullock: A Significant Development in Determining “Recklessness” Under Federal Law?