Also known as: pecuniary interests · financial interest
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A financial or economic interest involving money or its equivalent, especially one in the nature of an investment.
Antonio told Elena that he had overridden safety systems at the plant because repeated shutdowns would likely cost him his job. The admission exposed him to termination and civil liability. Because a reasonable person would make such a statement only if believing it true, the declaration qualifies as one against pecuniary interest.
A lawyer proposed to purchase a client's commercial property on terms that would give the lawyer an ownership interest directly opposed to the client's continued use of the asset. The transaction created a pecuniary interest adverse to the client. The rule therefore bars the lawyer from proceeding without full written disclosure and independent counsel advice.
Premier Fund induced Apex Trust to terminate a wealth-management contract one year early, depriving Federal Fund of expected fees. The loss constituted harm to a pecuniary interest. Federal Fund is therefore entitled to interest on the amount of lost fees from the date of termination until judgment.
A coal company spent millions to elect a state justice after suffering a large verdict. The justice's campaign received the bulk of its funding from the company. The resulting direct pecuniary interest in the outcome required the justice's recusal to satisfy due process.
In August 2002 a West Virginia jury found A. T. Massey Coal Co. and its affiliates liable for fraudulent misrepresentation, concealment, and tortious interference with existing contractual relations and awarded Hugh Caperton, Harman Development Corp., Harman Mining Corp., and Sovereign Coal Sales $50 million in compensatory and punitive damages. In June 2004 the trial court denied Massey's post-trial motions, and in March 2005 it denied Massey's motion for judgment as a matter of law. During the 2004 judicial election cycle Don Blankenship, Massey's chairman, chief executive officer, and president, contributed the statutory maximum of $1,000 to Brent Benjamin's campaign committee, almost $2.5 million to the §527 organization And For The Sake Of The Kids that opposed incumbent Justice McGraw and supported Benjamin, and just over $500,000 in independent expenditures for mailings, letters, television, and newspaper advertisements supporting Benjamin. Blankenship's $3 million in contributions were more than the total amount spent by all other Benjamin supporters and three times the amount spent by Benjamin's own committee. Benjamin won the election with 382,036 votes (53.3 percent) to McGraw's 334,301 votes (46.7 percent). In October 2005, before Massey filed its petition for appeal, Caperton moved to disqualify now-Justice Benjamin under the Due Process Clause and the West Virginia Code of Judicial Conduct. Justice Benjamin denied the motion in April 2006. In December 2006 Massey filed its petition for appeal, which the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals granted. In November 2007 that court reversed the $50 million verdict in a 3-to-2 decision in which Justice Benjamin joined the majority. Caperton sought rehearing, and the parties moved for disqualification of three justices; Justice Maynard recused after photographs surfaced of him vacationing with Blankenship, and Justice Starcher recused, but Justice Benjamin again declined to recuse. Justice Benjamin, now acting chief justice, selected two replacement judges. Caperton moved a third time for disqualification, supported by a public opinion poll showing that over 67 percent of West Virginians doubted Justice Benjamin's impartiality, but he again refused. In April 2008 the court again reversed the verdict in a 3-to-2 decision. Four months later Justice Benjamin filed a concurring opinion defending both the merits and his participation. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari.
An association that derived revenue from handling members' legal claims sponsored test litigation. Its financial stake in the outcome gave it a pecuniary interest in the suits. The distinction between organizations with and without such an interest is rationally related to traditional limits on champerty.
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View caseA plant operator admitted to a coworker that he had disabled automatic shutoffs to avoid discipline for production shortfalls. The statement threatened his continued employment and exposed him to liability. Mississippi's refusal to recognize declarations against penal interest left the statement inadmissible even though it was plainly against pecuniary interest.
The events that led to Leon Chambers' prosecution occurred on Saturday evening, June 14, 1969, in the small town of Woodville, Mississippi. Two Woodville policemen entered a local bar and pool hall to execute a warrant for the arrest of C. C. Jackson. Jackson resisted and a hostile crowd of some 50 or 60 persons gathered. During the commotion five or six pistol shots were fired. Officer Liberty was shot several times in the back. Liberty fired both barrels of his riot gun into an alley and hit Leon Chambers in the back of the head and neck. Chambers' friends James Williams, Berkley Turner, and Gable McDonald transported the wounded Chambers to the hospital. Chambers was subsequently charged with Liberty's murder. He pleaded not guilty and has asserted his innocence throughout. In November 1969 Gable McDonald gave a sworn confession to Chambers' attorneys admitting that he shot Officer Liberty with his .22-caliber revolver. One month later at a preliminary hearing McDonald repudiated his prior sworn confession. He testified that Reverend Stokes had persuaded him to confess and had promised that he would not go to jail and would share in the proceeds of a lawsuit Chambers would bring against the town of Woodville. At trial in October of the following year after a change of venue to Amite County Chambers called McDonald as a witness and introduced the sworn confession into evidence. The trial court denied Chambers' request to examine McDonald as an adverse witness under the voucher rule. Chambers attempted to introduce the testimony of Sam Hardin, Berkley Turner, and Albert Carter regarding McDonald's additional confessions to them but the court excluded this evidence as hearsay. The jury convicted Chambers of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the conviction. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether petitioner's trial was conducted in accord with principles of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Due process is violated when a judge has a direct, personal, substantial pecuniary interest in the outcome, such as when compensation is tied to fines or when a party has funded the judge's election campaign at a level that creates an unconstitutional probability of bias.
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…Maryland , 373 U. S. 59, 60. A conviction must be reversed if the trial judge's remuneration is based on a scheme giving him a financial interest in the result, even if no particular prejudice is shown and even if the defendant was clearly guilty. Tumey v. Ohio , 273 U. S. 510, 535. To try a defendant in a community that has been…
…his own interest at the time it is made. Mississippi recognizes this exception but applies it only to declarations against pecuniary interest. It recognizes no such exception for declarations, like McDonald's in this case, that are against the penal
…has been suggested that the state law may contain an invidious discrimination because it treats those organizations that have a pecuniary interest in litigation (for example, an insurance company) differently from those that do not. But surely it cannot be said that this distinction, which is so closely related to traditional concepts…
…also found that petitioner had failed to prove that the person primarily responsible for the article was biased by reason of his financial interest
…at 465 (“It is, of course, not every attack on a judge that disqualifies him from sitting”); Lavoie , supra , at 825–826 (some pecuniary interests are “ ‘too remote and insubstantial’ ”). We conclude that there is a serious risk of actual bias—based on objective and reasonable perceptions—when a person with a personal stake in a…
A statement is against pecuniary interest when a reasonable person would make it only if believing it true because it was so contrary to the declarant's proprietary or pecuniary interest. In civil cases the exception applies without additional corroboration even if the statement also exposes the declarant to criminal liability.
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A lawyer may not enter a business transaction with a client or acquire a pecuniary interest adverse to the client unless the terms are fair and reasonable, fully disclosed in writing, the client is advised to seek independent counsel, and the client gives informed consent confirmed in writing.
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Interest is recoverable on the amount found due for harms to pecuniary interests from the time the cause of action accrues until judgment, provided payment of interest is required to avoid injustice and the plaintiff has not elected a restitutionary measure of recovery.
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When a speaker has a pecuniary interest in a transaction and supplies false information for the guidance of others in their business dealings, the speaker is subject to liability for pecuniary loss caused by justifiable reliance if the speaker failed to exercise reasonable care.
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