Plaintiff taxpayer challenged the decision of the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco (California), which found in favor of defendant tax officials, in the taxpayers action to recover additional corporation franchise tax alleged to have been illegally assessed and collected for the tax year in question.
The taxpayer, with its principal office and place of incorporation in other states, was licensed to do business in California. The taxpayer acquired 70 percent of the shares of a California corporation. The taxpayer liquidated the purchased corporation, so that the taxpayer suffered a technical loss. The tax officials refused to consider this loss when computing the taxpayer's resulting franchise tax. The taxpayer paid the amount assessed and then brought an action in the trial court to recover the alleged excess amount. The trial Corporate attorney San Diego found in favor of the tax officials and the taxpayer sought review. On appeal the court reversed, holding that ownership of 70 percent of the capital stock of the domestic corporation was not for the purpose of passive participation in its affairs in the customary and usual manner, but was with the object of controlling the policies and operations of the domestic corporation and using it as a mere agency or instrumentality of the taxpayer in the conduct of the unitary business. Thus, the stock in question acquired in California a taxable situs by economic integration with the taxpayer's unitary business, and the loss should have been allowed.
The court reversed the decision of the trial court. The taxpayer was entitled to deduct the loss from the liquidation of its purchased business in California when calculating its franchise tax.
Plaintiff attorney petitioned for a writ of mandate or prohibition with the California Supreme Court requesting it to order defendant, the State Bar of California, to delete reference to his disciplinary record from its website. The petition was denied. The attorney then sued the State Bar for breach of a stipulation to private discipline. The Los Angeles County Superior Court dismissed the complaint, and the attorney appealed.
Attorney and the state bar stipulated to private reproval as discipline for alleged misconduct in exchange for four of five charges pending against attorney being dropped. Several years later the attorney learned that the state bar website gave his state bar number, and made a generic statement that he had a public record of discipline which was available by request. The court of appeal held that making this information available on its website did not amount to a violation of the stipulation because it did not affirmatively publicize his reproval. His private reproval became part of the attorney's official state bar membership records and could be disclosed in response to public inquiries, under Cal. R. P. St. Bar 270(c). The court held that use of the internet to search out the attorney's membership records and inquire about his public record of discipline might have been easier and it might have been faster than use of the telephone, but it was fundamentally no different. A specific inquiry by a member of the public was still required; the attorney could not expect that the method by which inquiry could be made would not affected by new technologies.
The court affirmed the superior court's order dismissing the attorney's complaint.
