Barja Inc. v. Equilon Enterprises, Llc
Barja Inc. v. Equilon Enterprises, Llc
Opinion of the Court
Barja Inc. and Fry’s 710 Freeway Investment, Inc. (“Appellants”) appeal the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Equilon Enterprises, LLC. Appellants operated Shell-brand service stations in California pursuant to Retail Facility Lease and Retail Sales Agreements with Equilon. They allege that Equilon failed to comply with California Business & Professions Code § 20999.25 when it decided to sell the service stations as part of a bulk transaction but did not properly extend right of first refusal offers (“ROFRs”) to appellants. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
Parties to a bulk purchase transaction may allocate a portion of the total purchase price to a single site in order to allow an existing franchisee to exercise a right of first refusal, as long as the valuation of the individual property is readily apparent from the bulk offer and the valuation has not been manipulated to the franchisor’s advantage. Forty-Niner Truck Plaza, Inc. v. Union Oil Co. of Cal., 58 Cal.App.4th 1261, 1279-80, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 532 (Cal.Ct.App. 1997) (citing Arnold v. Amoco Oil Co., 872 F.Supp. 1493, 1499 (W.D.Va. 1995)). Appellants have failed to raise genuine issues of material fact either that the valuations of the individual sites were not readily apparent from the bulk offer or that Equilon manipulated the individual property valuations. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986).
Likewise, appellants have failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact that the ROFRs here did not “approach! ] fair market value under an objectively reasonable analysis,” Forty-Niner, 58 Cal.App.4th at 1281, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 532 (citations omitted), and thus were not bona fide offers under § 20999.25(a).
Appellants remaining contentions are unpersuasive.
AFFIRMED.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The record reflects a disputed issue of material fact as to whether the right of first refusal offers (ROFRs) Equilon extended to Barja and Fry’s provided the recipients of the offers with an opportunity to purchase the same assets as the third party bidder, Apro, would acquire for the same price. A question remains whether, for the offer price, Apro was buying something that Barja and Fry’s were not. Summary judgment was therefore inappropriate.
The record indicates that if Apro purchased the franchisees’ stations from Equi-lon, it would acquire not only the land, improvements, and equipment at each station site, but also the right to supply the stations with fuel, as the exclusive wholesale distributor, for at least ten years. In contrast, the record suggests that if Barja and Fry’s exercised their rights of first refusal and purchased their respective stations at the prices identified by Apro, they would obtain no such wholesale distribution rights, only the station property and its accouterments.
Specifically, the record permits an inference that there was a value attributed to the acquisition of the fuel supply rights, independent of the station property, and that Apro was required to, and did, include that value in its overall bulk bid as well as in the portions of the bulk bid attributed to Barja’s and Fry’s respective stations.
That the individual station valuations were apparent from the face of Apro’s bulk bid and that there was no evidence of price manipulation do not detract from that conclusion. Those circumstances are necessary but not sufficient conditions to demonstrate compliance with California Business & Professions Code § 20999.25. The California statute, like its federal counterpart, the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2801 et seq., provides that a franchisee must have a bona fide opportunity to purchase from the franchisor the same interests in the premises as are on offer to a third party purchaser. See Forty-Niner, 58 Cal.App.4th at 1266, 1273-74, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 532. And it remains unclear on the present record whether that fundamental requirement was met here.
Accordingly, I would reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Equilon.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.