U.S. Industries, Inc. v. Touche Ross & Co.

Status

35 later cases cite U.S. Industries, Inc. v. Touche Ross & Co.; 35 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Treatments

Abrogated

• The Supreme Court's holding that § 10(b) permits no private aiding and abetting suit displaced U.S. Industries' contrary securities holding.

  Central Bank of Denver, N.A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N.A. · Supreme Court of the United States · filed April 19, 1994

  Because the text of § 10(b) does not prohibit aiding and abetting, we hold that a private plaintiff may not maintain an aiding and abetting suit under § 10(b).

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Declined to follow

• The Fourth Circuit declined to follow U.S. Industries' refusal to apply the Kotteakos harmless-error standard in civil cases.

  Taylor v. Virginia Union University · United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · filed September 27, 1999

  We recognize that three circuits have refused to apply the Kotteakos standard in the civil context primarily on the basis that proving harmless error in the criminal context as opposed to the civil context should be more difficult given the differing burdens of proof. See United States Industries, Inc. v. Touche Ross & Co., 854 F.2d 1223, 1252-53 (10th Cir.1988), impliedly overruled on other grounds; McIlroy v. Dittmer, 732 F.2d 98, 105 (8th Cir.1984); Haddad v. Lockheed California Corp., 720 F.2d 1454, 1459 (9th Cir.1983). As we have said, the statutory language of § 2111 implies that Congress intended uniform treatment of the harmless error statute in the civil and criminal contexts. Cf. Owens-Illinois, Inc. v. Rapid Am. Corp. (In re Celotex), 124 F.3d 619, 630 (4th Cir.1997) (holding that requirements for obtaining relief on appeal for plain error in a criminal case under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), one of which is that a plain error affected an appellant's substantial rights, at a minimum, must be satisfied before we would exercise our discretion to correct an error not raised below in a civil case, because the court could not conceive of any "reason why an appellant in a civil case should bear a lesser burden for obtaining correction of a forfeited error than an appellant in a criminal case...."). Accordingly, we reject the holdings and rationale of these circuits.

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