Bondholder references Tolstoy in lawsuit against Station Casinos

An individual bondholder filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday against Station Casinos’ prepackaged bankruptcy, and referenced 19th century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy in his argument.

S. Blake Murchison, place of residence not given, filed the lawsuit in Nevada federal court claiming Station Casinos is favoring institutional investors over individual bondholders in the Feb. 3 plan and “trying to avoid honoring the debt obligations they owe a large portion of their bondholders.”

In the introduction of the lawsuit, Tolstoy, a known gambler in his youth and the author of “War and Peace,” is quoted: “A gentleman is a man who will pay his gambling debts even when he knows he has been cheated.”

Murchison claims the defendants, officers of the casino company as well as co-owner Colony Capital, “are not acting gentlemanly,” in offering him a bond holding that “will likely be rendered worthless as the specter of Station Casinos’ insolvency approaches.”

Murchison filed a similar lawsuit in Delaware in January challenging a debt exchange offered by Harrah’s Entertainment.