Delaware Business Litigation Report

Chancery Confirms Bad Faith Pleading Standard for Officer Caremark Claims

Segway Inc. v. Hong Cai, C.A. No. 2022-1110-LWW (Del. Ch. Ct. Dec. 14, 2023)
The Caremark doctrine recognizes the duty of oversight for directors of Delaware corporations. Under In re McDonald's Corp. Stockholder Derivative Litigation, 289 A.3d 343 (Del. Ch. Jan. 26, 2023), corporate officers, and not just directors, owe a duty of oversight, at least within the scope of each officer’s responsibilities. This decision confirms that the same pleading standard – one requiring bad faith – applies to officer oversight claims. Here, the plaintiff brought such a claim against its former president arising out of declining sales of the company's transportation devices and an increase in accounts receivable.

The Court of Chancery understood the plaintiff to contend that the high-bar for Caremark claims is lowered in the case of officers. In dismissing the claim for failure to plead bad faith, the Court rejected this “distressing reading” of Delaware law, and confirmed that the pleading standard is the same regardless of the fiduciary target. As the Court explained: “The Caremark doctrine is not a tool to hold fiduciaries liable for everyday business problems. Rather, it is intended to address the extraordinary case where fiduciaries’ ‘utter failure’ to implement an effective compliance system or ‘conscious disregard’ of the law gives rise to a corporate trauma. These tenets of [Delaware] law persist regardless of whether a Caremark claim is brought against a director or an officer. Officers’ management of day-to-day matters does not make them guarantors of negative outcomes from imperfect business decisions.”

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