Redmond v. CJD & Associates, LLC (In re Brooke Corp.)
Redmond v. CJD & Associates, LLC (In re Brooke Corp.)
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER ON CROSS-MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT, GRANTING CJD’S MOTION AND DENYING THE TRUSTEE’S MOTION
In this adversary proceeding, Christopher J. Redmond, the Chapter 7 Trustee of Debtors Brooke Corporation (Brooke Corp), Brooke Capital Corporation (Brooke Capital), and Brooke Investments, Inc., seeks to avoid certain transfers from Brooke Corp to Defendant CJD & Associates, LLC (CJD), under 11 U.S.C. § 547, to recover the avoided transfers from CJD under 11 U.S.C. § 550,
The parties have filed and responded to cross-motions for summary judgment. Oral argument on the motions was held on May 7, 2015. The Court finds that there are no material facts in controversy, finds that certain transfers from Brooke Corp to CJD were preferential under § 547(b), grants in part CJD’s contemporaneous-exchange-for-new-value defense under § 547(c)(1), and grants in part CJD’s ordinary-course-of-business defense under § 547(c)(2). After applying the subsequent-new-value defense under § 547(c)(4) to the remaining preferential transfers, the Court finds that CJD has no liability to Brooke Corp’s bankruptcy estate and
UNCONTROVERTED FACTS.
The parties have stipulated to the facts in the Parties’ Amended First Set of Stipulations.
A. STIPULATED FACTS.
At all relevant times, CJD was a Kansas limited liability company that did business under the trade name of Davidson-Bab-cock. CJD was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brooke Brokerage Corporation. Brooke Brokerage was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brooke Corp. Brooke Corp was insolvent at all relevant times. Brooke Corp filed for bankruptcy relief on October 28, 2008. CJD was administratively dissolved effective July 15, 2010, for failure to file its annual report with the Kansas Secretary of State.
CJD was a professional wholesale general insurance agency which specialized in excess and surplus lines of insurance coverage for commercial risks. CJD wrote approximately $15 million of premium per year and operated in approximately 8 states in the Midwest. CJD also wrote business for Brooke agents in approximately 29 states, and this business represented approximately 30% of CJD’s premium.
On January 24, 2007, Cliff Daniels was elected to the Board of Directors of CJD and to the offices of Senior Vice President and Assistant Secretary. On May 15, 2007, the CJD board of directors by written consent authorized William Greet, Anita Lowry, and Kristy Lenker to take actions concerning CJD’s depository bank accounts, including transferring and withdrawing funds. Greet was an officer of CJD, but Lowry and Lenker were employees of Brooke Corp or Brooke Capital, or both, and not officers or employees of CJD.
CJD conducted its business using at least three bank accounts. At all relevant times, it had: (1) an operating account at First National Bank of Phillipsburg, Kansas (FNB), and later at GenBank (also in Phillipsburg); (2) a company payable account through which it passed monies it received to various insurance carriers (at FNB and later GenBank); and (3) an account at First National.Bank in Overland Park. So long as Brooke Corp made funds available, CJD had the ability to withdraw money from and deposit money into its operating and payable accounts. Brooke Corp also had an operating account at FNB and later GenBank, as well as various other accounts at FNB and GenBank. For each account, the company owning the account had title to the funds on deposit at any given time. The Brooke companies could use software to transfer funds between accounts held by the Brooke companies at GenBank, including CJD.
Exhibit A to the Stipulations is a 65-page spreadsheet of transactions from October 30, 2006, through October 24, 2008, that were initiated by Brooke Corp and transferred funds back and forth between CJD accounts (at FNB and later, Gen-Bank) and Brooke Corp accounts (at FNB
CJD monthly balance sheets for the period between October 31, 2007, and September 7, 2008, listed a “Parent Company Payable” that Brooke Corp owed to CJD on the date of each balance sheet. The amount of the Parent Company Payable varied from a high of $3,708,797 on October 31, 2007, to a low of $2,020,361.76 on May 31, 2008.
B. ADDITIONAL UNCONTRO-VERTED FACTS.
Approximately three or four years before its bankruptcy filing, Brooke Corp started a practice of moving funds from one subsidiary through Brooke Corp to another subsidiary. Brooke Corp made this change so it could implement a mechanism to “track the different subsidiaries and how much one owed to the other.”
The system used after the change was called the “Cash Management System.” It was conducted by Brooke Corp’s cash management team, which was headed by Anita Lowry and comprised of approximately 20 people.
CJD was particularly targeted as a source of cash for other Brooke subsidiaries because it “had more funds than any other particular subsidiary.”
There were no loan documents relating to the account-to-account transfers, and CJD never received any interest, fees, or other consideration related to the transfers from CJD to Brooke Corp. The account-to-account transfers were reflected in the Parent Company Payable item on CJD’s balance sheets, which had a balance of $3,031,662.87 on September 30, 2008. During the one-year preference period, October 28, 2007, to October 28, 2008, $423,623,789.26 was transferred from CJD to Brooke Corp, and during the same period $421,802,455.30 was transferred from Brooke Corp to CJD. A balance sheet for CJD as of October 31, 2008, shows a Parent Company Payable of $5,119,447.50 owed by Brooke Corp to CJD.
Brooke Corp never sought permission from CJD for CJD to be part of the Cash Management System, CJD never gave its consent for Brooke Corp to make the transfers, and no one from Brooke Corp ever consulted with CJD and asked if it was an acceptable practice from CJD’s vantage." Cliff Daniels of CJD testified that he knew of the account-to-account transfers, but that he never directed anyone to make any of the transfers. He did not request that they be discontinued “because that was the way it had always been done. And it wasn’t of concern, you know, as long as moneys were always there to pay the accounts.”
However, some of the transfers out of CJD’s accounts appear not to have been a part of Brooke Corp’s Cash Management System, as it was described by Leland Orr, Cliff Daniels, and Patricia Huber. These other transfers do not fit the pattern of a transfer from CJD to Brooke Corp followed by a redeposit by Brooke Corp within a day or two. Rather, they were transfers from and to CJD in various amounts without a related transaction. Other than the inclusion in the list of transfers attached to the stipulation of facts, there is very little evidence about these transfers. Anita Lowry testified that these transfers had nothing to do with getting money to Brooke Corp so it could get money to subsidiaries. As to a Brooke Corp withdrawal of $150,000 from CJD’s account on November 1, 2006, before the preference period, she testified that notes relating to the transfer indicated it was related to a shared services agreement between Brooke Corp and CJD,
The Trustee’s predecessor commenced this adversary proceeding against CJD in October 2011, and the Trustee filed an Amended Complaint on February 9, 2012. The Trustee sought to recover from CJD under §§ 544, 547, 548, 550, and 551. An attachment to the Amended Complaint set forth $6,447,653.46 in potential preferential transfers. In the joint stipulations, the Trustee formally abandoned Brooke Corp’s claims under §§ 548 and 550. In his motion for summary judgment, the Trustee alleged that $2,048,127.40, composed of five transfers from Brooke Corp to CJD between September 17, 2008, and October 24, 2008, were avoidable preferences, and, after application of the subsequent-new-value defense, the net avoidable preference was $1,169,231.62.
POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES.
The Trustee requests that the Court grant his motion for summary judgment and enter a judgment in favor of the Trustee against CJD as follows:
*903 a. Finding that the $2,048,127,40 in transfers that Brooke Corp made to CJD between September 17, 2008 and September 29, 2008 are avoidable as preferential transfers pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 547(b);25
b. Finding that the contemporaneous exchange and ordinary course defenses under 11 U.S.C. § 547(c)(1) and (2) are unavailable to CJD;
c. Finding that, after application of the subsequent new value defense under 11 U.S.C. § 547(c)(4), the net voidable preference is $1,169,231.62;
d. Finding that the Trustee may recover $1,169,231.62 from CJD pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 550; and
e. Entering judgment against CJD in the amount of $1,169,231.62 plus prejudgment interest in the amount of $357,819.78.26
CJD defends by contending that the Trustee .has not established the elements of a preferential transfer under § 547(b) because the account-to-account transfers did not result in a debtor-creditor relationship with Brooke Corp, and if such a relationship was created, CJD has no liability because of the contemporaneous-exchange-for-new-value defense and the ordinary-course-of-business defense.
DISCUSSION.
A. THE TRUSTEE HAS ESTABLISHED THE ELEMENTS OF AVOIDABLE PREFERENTIAL TRANSFERS, INCLUDING THAT CJD WAS A CREDITOR OF BROOKE CORP WHEN BROOKE CORP MADE THE TRANSFERS WHICH THE TRUSTEE SEEKS TO AVOID.
The Trustee has the burden to establish the elements of his § 547(b) case. The parties have stipulated to the existence of the elements under § 547(b)(2) (that the transfers were for or on account of an antecedent debt owed by Brooke Corp be- ■ fore the transfers were made),
The Trustee argues that the first remaining element, that the transfers were of “an interest of the debtor in property,” is satisfied. The transfers were made from Brooke Corp’s account at GenBank. The parties stipulated that Brooke Corp was the owner of the account and that the money transferred from the account was the property of Brooke Corp at the time each transfer was made. The Trustee further argues that the Tenth Circuit has adopted the “dominion/control” test for determining “whether a transfer of property was a transfer of ‘an interest of the debtor in property.’ ”
The Trustee contends that the second remaining element, that the transfers were “to or for the benefit of a creditor,” is satisfied because when the transfers were made, CJD was a “creditor” as defined by the Bankruptcy Code. The Code defines a “creditor” as an “entity that has a claim against the debtor that arose at the time of or before the order for relief, concerning the debtor.”
The third remaining element is that the transfers were made within the preference period defined by § 547(b)(4), either 90 days prepetition or, for transfers to insiders, one year prepetition. The Trustee seeks to recover only transfers that were made after September 17, 2008, which is
When challenging the second remaining element, CJD contends the Trustee has failed to establish the existence of a debtor-creditor relationship and thus cannot avoid the transfers under § 547(b). It is CJD’s position that a debtor-creditor relationship can only arise with the consent of both parties, and it is uncontrovert-ed that CJD did not expressly consent to the transfers to and from Brooke Corp. CJD asserts it “was not in a debtor-creditor relationship with Brooke Corporation; it was owned and dominated by Brooke Corporation, and now the Trustee attempts to take advantage of that domination by calling the Cash Management Transfers something akin to a short-term loan or payable obligation.”
In support of the consent requirement, CJD relies upon several cases. First, CJD quotes AppOnline, a New York bankruptcy court decision, which, without citing any supporting authority, states, “Any debtor-creditor relationship can only arise with the consent of both parties.”
Concerning the need for consent to establish a debtor-creditor relationship, CJD also relies upon two additional banking .cases. The first is Laws,
In response, the Trustee argues that the foregoing cases are wholly distinct from this case and therefore inapplicable. The Court agrees. The situation in this case is not analogous to the relátionships that exist during the check collection process, which is governed by the well-established and detailed laws of banking transactions. The AppOnline statement regarding the need for consent, which was not supported by any authority, was fact specific. It described how a debtor-creditor relationship arises during the check clearing process. CJD points to no general principle that consent is required to form a debtor-creditor relationship. Rather, the Bankruptcy Code definitions of “claim,” “debt,” and “creditor” make no reference to consent.
As part of its argument that consent is required to create a debtor-creditor relationship, CJD argues that no creditors of Brooke Corporation are worse off because of the Cash Management Transfers. It is true that the Cash Management Transfers did not harm Brooke Corp’s creditors — by definition these transfers were Brooke Corp’s transfer of an amount identical to an amount recently taken from CJD. But the account-to-account transfers from Brooke Corp to CJD which were not Cash Management Transfers did deplete Brooke Corp’s assets. CJD further argues that “during the Preference Period [the one year before filing], Brooke Corporation’s cash management team took $1.8 million more in funds from CJD than it replaced,”
CJD next contends that “a cash management device such as existed here can-never be the basis for a creditor-debtor relationship,”
The Trustee responds by arguing that the cited cases are distinct from the present case; that the undisputed facts show a debtor-creditor relationship arose from the transfers, as evidenced by the Parent Company Payable on CJD’s balance sheets; that even though there were no formal loan documents, this does not change the fact that a debt existed; and that individuals who were involved in the Cash Management System testified that Brooke Corp owed money to CJD. The Trustee further points out that CJD’s central argument that consent is required to create a debtor-creditor relationship is simply wrong; that there are many situations giving rise to the relationship where one or both parties have not consented to the claim arising. Examples given are claims arising from conversion and from negligence or recklessness.
The Court finds that the Trustee should be granted summary judgment on his § 547(b) claim with respect to the transfers made by Brooke Corp between September 17, 2008, and October 24, 2008. The only defense asserted by CJD is that no debtor-creditor relationship was created because the parties did not give- consent for the transfers to give rise to loans. Consent is not an element of the Bankruptcy Code definitions of “claim,” “debt,” and “creditor.” Consent was relevant in the cases relied upon by CJD because of the unique circumstances of those cases. The Cash Management Transfers gave rise to a debt that was quickly satisfied by Brooke Corp’s subsequent replacement of the funds transferred from CJD. There is no evidence to support any other interpretation of the resulting relationship. The transfers that were not Cash Management Transfers, the account-to-account transfers from CJD with no related transfer back from Brooke Corp, gave rise to longer-term debt, analogous to a debt arising from conversion. The parties stipulated that the CJD balance sheets reflected a Parent Company Payable accounting for the account-to-account transfers between Brooke Corp and CJD. The transfers Brooke Corp made to CJD which the Trustee seeks to avoid were made to a creditor, as required by § 547(b)(1).
“[U]nder section 547(c)(1) a transfer that would otherwise be considered preferential is insulated from attack by the trustee if (1) the preference defendant extended new value to the debtor, (2) both the defendant and the debtor intended the new value and reciprocal transfer by the debtor to be contemporaneous and (3) the exchange was in fact contemporaneous.”
CJD contends that the elements of § 547(c)(1) are satisfied as to the Cash Management Transfers, those transfers from Brooke Corp to CJD which returned to CJD an amount identical to that which had been transferred to Brooke Corp a short time earlier, usually the previous business day. The Trustee seeks to avoid one Cash Management Transfer, a transfer by Brooke Corp to CJD of $1,990,000 on September 17, 2008, which “replaced” a like transfer from CJD to Brooke Corp the previous day.
For this Cash Management Transfer, it is uncontroverted that CJD transferred funds (new value) to Brooke Corp on September 16, 2008. To satisfy the intent element, CJD relies upon deposition testimony. As to the transfers being contemporaneous, the uncontroverted fact is that Brooke Corp transferred $1,990,000 to CJD one day after receiving the same amount from CJD.
The Trustee argues that the contemporaneous-transfer defense fails because CJD has failed to prove that both parties intended the transfers to be contemporaneous. Although conceding that Brooke Corp intended the Cash Management Transfers to be essentially simultaneous transfers of the funds recently taken from CJD, the Trustee argues that CJD had no such intent, that at most CJD had general knowledge that transfers back and forth were taking place.
The controversy is whether under the uncontroverted facts, the requirement of § 547(c)(1)(A) that the Cash Management Transfer which the Trustee seeks to avoid was “intended by the debtor and the creditor to or for whose benefit such transfer was made to be a contemporaneous exchange for new value given to the debt- or” is satisfied. “Since parties rarely testify as to their intent, the courts look to the circumstances surrounding each situation” to determine if the parties had the requisite intent.
CJD cites three cases in support of its understanding of the exception. The first is In re Lease-A-Fleet.
The Trustee cites numerous cases supporting the importance of the mutual intent element. The oldest is National City Bank,
The Court finds that the mutual intent required for the contemporaneous-exchange defense is present as to Brooke Corp’s transfer to CJD of $1,990,000 on September 17, 2008, which replaced the transfer from CJD of the same amount on September 16, 2008. Although it is uncon-troverted that “CJD never expressly consented or authorized the practice related to the Cash Management Transfers — no one from Brooke Corporation ever consulted with CJD and asked if this was an acceptable practice from CJD’s vantage,”
The Court therefore holds that with respect to the transfer of $1,990,000 by Brooke Corp to CJD on September 17, 2008, CJD has sustained its burden of proof under § 647(c)(1), the contemporaneous-exchange-for-new-value defense. The Trustee may not avoid Brooke Corp’s transfer of $1,990,000 to CJD.
C. THE ORDINARY-COURSE DEFENSE OF § 547(c)(2) APPLIES TO BROOKE CORP’S CASH MANAGEMENT TRANSFER OF $1,990,000 TO CJD, BUT NOT TO THE OTHER ACCOUNT-TO-ACCOUNT TRANSFERS WHICH THE TRUSTEE SEEKS TO AVOID.
CJD also relies upon the ordinary-course-of-business defense of § 547(c)(2). There are two elements to the defense: (1) the “transfer was in payment of a debt incurred by the debtor in the ordinary course of business or financial affairs of the debtor and the transferee;” and (2) the transfer was either (á) “made in the ordinary course of business or financial affairs of the debtor and the transferee” or (b) “made according to ordinary business terms.” CJD has the burden of
CJD contends that element (1), the debt-incurred element, is also present, but the Trustee disagrees. CJD contends the uncontroverted facts establish that Brooke Corp’s debt to CJD was incurred in the routine operation of Debtor and CJD. The Trustee responds that the debt element is not satisfied because the test is whether the transaction was a typical arms-length creation of debt on the open market, and that loans between insiders or closely-affiliated parties do not satisfy the requirement. The dispute is about the legal standard — do the practices of the parties, even if unusual, satisfy the requirement if they are according to their ordinary practices?
Courts do not agree on the interpretation of the debt-incurred element of § 547(c)(2). Collier on Bankruptcy describes the requirement that the debt be incurred in the ordinary course as follows:
As compared with other areas of preference law, there is- scant case law on the issue of whether a debt has been incurred in the ordinary course of business between the debtor and the transferee ....
The primary tension in the interpretation of subsection 547(c)(2)(A) is whether it requires that the debt at issue be normal with regard to each party’s business operations generally or that such debt be considered ordinary based upon the specific transactional history between the debtor and the transferee. The better reasoned decisions hold that a debt will not be considered incurred in the ordinary course of business if creation of the debt is atypical, fraudulent or not consistent with an arms-length commercial transaction.
Yet there is a contrary line of cases holding that, to satisfy subséction 547(c)(2)(A), the transferee must show that the debt at issue was incurred in the ordinary course of business between the debtor and the transferee. These cases narrow their focus to look only at whether the transaction that generated the challenged transfer is consistent with other transactions between the debtor and the creditor, rather than looking at whether the transaction is consistent with the general business operations of both the debtor and the creditor. These courts believe that subpara-graph (A) contemplates a subjective test: Were the debt and the transfer ordinary as between the debtor and the creditor? To be subjectively ordinary implies some consistency with other business transactions between the parties.74
CJD contends' that the test for the debt being incurred in the ordinary course is completely subjective — if the debtor and the creditor made loans of the type in issue in the ordinary course of their financial affairs, the test is satisfied. The Trustee contends that the test is at least in part objective — the debt must be normal with regard to both the debtor’s and the creditor’s businesses or financial operations generally. One court describes the subjective test as asking “whether the debt incurred was ordinary as between the debtor and the defendant” and the objective test as looking to “whether the debt was incurred in the ordinary course of each par
The case law in the Tenth Circuit is ambiguous about whether the objective test or the subjective test governs the ordinary-course defense, and each party contends that its position is supported by applicable precedent. In 1989, the Tenth Circuit in Fidelity addressed “whether § 547(c)(2) ... applies to a transfer unrelated to the payment of trade debt.”
In 1996, then-Bankruptcy Judge Robinson decided Liberty Livestock,
In 2006, Chief Judge Nugent of this District found “no doubt” that the debtor’s checks written to an association of franchisees for past due insurance premiums for coverage through the association’s insurance program with a full-service insurance broker were in payment of ordinary course debts under § 547(c)(2)(A).
In 2013, in C.W. Mining,
CJD urges the Court to follow the subjective test for incurring debt for purposes of § 547(c)(2)(A). Its primary authority is Liberty Livestock. The Trustee urges the Court to adopt the objective test of the BAP’s C.W. Mining decision and other cases. Each party makes extensive argument about the alleged deficiencies of the other’s authorities.
CJD’s basic argument is that the ordinary-course-debt requirement is satisfied because Brooke Corp and CJD ordinarily engaged in the financial transactions at issue. The statistical analysis of an expert is presented, comparing transactions. before and during the one-year preference period and concluding that there was minimal change in the frequency and timing of the Cash, Management Transfers. CJD argues that the BAP’s C.W. Mining decision did not hold that for the ordinary-course-of-business defense to apply, “the transactions at issue must be typical, arms-length creations of debt in the open market.”
The Trustee argues that Brooke Corp’s debt to CJD was not incurred in the ordinary course. Neither Brooke Corp nor CJD was engaged in the business of making short-term loans. CJD was a professional wholesale general insurance agency. It was not in the business of making short-term loans. The repayments were transfers to an insider for very atypical loans. The Trustee relies upon the BAP’s C.W. Mining decision for the proposition that the test is whether “ ‘the transaction was a typical arms-length creation of debt in the open market.’ ”
The Court finds merit in both the subjective and objective tests, and believes that the correct result was reached in the foregoing cases, despite their stated disagreement as to the applicable test. There is no apparent reason why courts should adopt either the subjective or objective alternatives as controlling for all circumstances. The Bankruptcy Code requirement that the transfer be “in payment of a debt incurred by the debtor in the ordinary course of business or financial affairs of the debtor and the transferee” does not specify that the test must be either subjective or objective. This is in contrast to the requirement of § 547(c)(2) that the transfer satisfy one of two tests, the subjective test stated in § 547(c)(2)(A) or the objective test stated in § 547(c)(2)(B). The Tenth Circuit’s directive that the incurrence of the debt requirement “be read in light of the ‘general policy of the preference section to discourage unusual action by either the debtor or [its] creditors during the debt- or’s slide into bankruptcy’”
The Court finds that to properly apply the ordinary-course-of-business-or-financial-affairs defense, it must consider the Cash Management Transfers separate
However, with respect to the payment of debt by the account-to-account transfers which were not Cash Management Transfers, the Court finds that the ordinary-course defense is not available. The debt satisfied , by these account-to-account transfers was that represented by the Parent Company Payable, which was $2,378,625.38
For the foregoing reasons, the Court concludes that CJD has proven that the ordinary-course defense precludes the Trustee from avoiding the Cash Management Transfer of $1,990,000 Brooke Corp made to CJD on September 17, 2008.
D. WHEN THE SEPTEMBER 17, 2008 TRANSFER FROM BROOKE CORP TO CJD OF $1,990,000 IS REMOVED FROM THE PREFERENCE ANALYSIS, CJD HAS NO LIABILITY TO BROOKE CORP’S BANKRUPTCY ESTATE.
As analyzed above, the Court concludes that CJD has a valid defense to the Trustee’s claim to recover Brooke Corp’s transfer to CJD of $1,990,000 on September 17, 2008. As shown on Attachment A, this leaves transfers of $55,000, $1,527.40, $1,000, and $600 as avoidable preferential transfers from Brooke Corp to CJD for the period from September 17, 2008, through October 28, 2008, the date Brooke Corp filed for bankruptcy relief. During this same period, fourteen transfers of CJD’s funds totaling far more than the preferential transfers were made to Brooke Corp. As shown on Attachment B,
CONCLUSION.
The Court finds that the controlling facts are uncontroverted and that, as a matter of law, CJD is entitled to judgment in its favor. Although the Court finds that there was a debtor-creditor relationship between Brooke Corp and CJD during the 90 days before the filing of Brooke Corp’s bankruptcy petition, only four transfers between September 17, 2008, and October 24, 2008 are preferential transfers. With respect to the September 17, 2008 transfer of $1,990,000.00, CJD has sustained its burden of proof for both the § 547(c)(1) contemporaneous-exchange-for-new-value defense and the § 547(c)(2) ordinary-course-of-business-or-financial-affairs defense. With respect to the other three preferential transfers, the subsequent-new-value defense under § 547(c)(4) protects CJD from any liability on the Trustee’s claims to avoid those transfers. Since the Trustee may not avoid any transfers, his claim for prejudgment interest is moot.
The foregoing constitutes Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law under Rule 7052 of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, which makes Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure applicable to this proceeding. A judgment based upon this ruling will be entered on a' separate document as required by Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 7058, which makes Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58 applicable to this proceeding.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Attachment
ATTACHMENT A
TRUSTEE’S PREFERENCE CLAIM MINUS SUBSEQUENT NEW VALUE
PREFERENCE ANALYSIS AFTER REMOVAL OF CASH MANAGEMENT TRANSFERS
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. Future references to sections of title 11 in the text shall be to the section number only;
. Doc. 103 at ¶¶ 5, 6, and 7.
. Doc. 103.
. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(3), made applicable by Fed. R. Bankr. P. 7056 (in deciding sum-maiy judgment motion, court needs to consider cited materials but may consider other materials in record).
. The parties agree that CJD was an insider for purposes of § 547(b)(4).
. Testimony of Anita Lowry at 21:21-22.
. Id at 14:9-12.
. Testimony of Leland Orr at 59:9-18.
. Doc. 115 at 8, ¶ 22, quoting testimony of Anita Lowry at 22:8-21.
. Expert Opinion Report prepared by Steve W. Brown, doc. 115-15 at 7.
. Id. ató.
. Testimony of D. Clifford Daniels at 100:10-12.
.Id. at 98:14-100:16.
. Id. at 130:16-23.
. Id. at 131:14-20.
. Id. at 114:18-20.
. Testimony of Patricia Huber at 140:8-16.
. Testimony of Anita Lowry at 94:8-24.
. Id. at 42:1-22.
. Id. at 43:8-44:7.
. Id. at 44:18-45:1.
. See Attachment A, Trustee's Preference Claim Minus Subsequent New Value. The parties' calculations for the period from September 17, 2008, to October 24, 2008, of the alleged preferential transfers Brooke Corp made to CJD minus the subsequent new value CJD paid to Brooke Corp are identical. Compare Doc. 117 at 25 with Doc. 115-13 at 28.
. See Doc. 117 at 24.
. The Trustee abandoned the constructively fraudulent conveyance claims against CJD under §§ 548 and 550 and Kansas law that were asserted in the Amended Complaint. The
. The preferential transfer amount is determined after application of the subsequent-new-value defense under § 547(c)(4) to all of the account-to-account transfers made by Brooke Corp during the preference period (the one-year period prior to Brooke Corp’s bankruptcy filing on October 28, 2008). During the preference period, CJD transferred $423,623,789.26 to Brooke Corp and Brooke Corp transferred $421,802,45.30 to CJD. See doc. 115 at 4. During that time, because of the transfers CJD made to Brooke Corp after Brooke Corp had made transfers to CJD, the potential preference amount fell to zero several times, the last of which occurred on September 17, 2008, after CJD transferred $1,380,000 to Brooke Corp. Therefore, under § 547(c)(4), the subsequent-new-value defense, the Trustee cannot recover any transfers Brooke Corp made to CJD during the preceding portion of the preference period, even though there was an outstanding Parent Company Payable during that time. See Attachment A.
. Doc. 117 at 20-21.
. The bankruptcy of an entity who was a party to a prepetition cash management system can present multiple difficult issues under the Bankruptcy Code. See e.g., Amdura Nat'l Dist. Co. v. Amdura Corp. (In re Amdura Corp.), 75 F.3d 1447 (10th Cir. 1996); LandAmerica Financial Group, Inc. v. Southern Cal. Edison Co., 525 B.R. 308 (E.D.Va. 2015).
. The Court understands this stipulation to be conditional — if a debt was created by the transfers from CJD to Brooke Corp, then the transfers from Brooke Corp to CJD satisfied an antecedent debt. Although the Trustee suggests that the stipulation bars CJD’s defense that no debtor-creditor relationship existed, the Court does not construe that stipulation so broadly as to preclude CJD’s only defense to the elements of the Trustee’s claim under § 547(b).
. Parks v. FIA Card Services, N.A. (In re Marshall), 550 F.3d 1251, 1255-56 (10th Cir. 2008).
. 11 U.S.C. § 101(10)(A).
. 11 U.S.C. § 101(5)(A).
. Doc. 103 at 9, ¶ 108.
. Doc. 115 at 20.
. Jacobs v. State Bank (In re AppOnline.com, Inc.), 296 B.R. 602, 619 (Bankr.E.D.N.Y. 2003).
. Laws v. United Missouri Bank of Kansas City, N.A., 98 F.3d 1047, 1050-51 (8th Cir. 1996).
. Nordberg v. Societe Generale (In re Chase & Sanborn Corp.), 848 F.2d 1196, 1200-01 (11th Cir. 1988).
. CJD also relies upon Claybrook v. Consolidated Foods, Inc. (In re Bake-Line Group, LLC), 359 B.R. 566 (Bankr.D.Del. 2007), which arose outside the banking context. In that case, a check payable to a third party was misdelivered to the debtor who deposited it into its account, and then issued a check delivering the funds to the rightful owner. The court ruled the funds received by the debtor were held in constructive trust for the trae owner, and there was no transfer of an interest of the debtor in property for purposes of § 547(b). The facts in this case are not similar.
. Doc. 115 at 20.
. McClendon v. Cal-Wood Door (In re Wadsworth Bldg. Components, Inc.), 711 F.2d 122, 123 (9th Cir. 1983).
. Id.
. Elec. Metal Prods., Inc. v. Bittmam (In re Elec. Metal Prods., Inc.), 916 F.2d 1502, 1507 (10th Cir. 1990).
. Doc. 115 at 21.
. Pioneer Liquidating Corp. v. San Diego Trust & Savs. Bank (In re Consol. Pioneer Mortg. Entities), 166 F.3d 342, 1999 WL 23156 (9th Cir. 1999) (unpublished opinion citing Laws, 98 F.3d 1047, discussed above).
. Doc. 115 at 22.
. Doc. 120 at 12.
.Doc. 118 at 18-19.
. 5 Collier on Bankruptcy, ¶ 547.04[1] at 547-41 to -42 (Alan N. Resnick & Henry J. Sommer, eds.-in-chief, 16th ed. 2015).
. Id. at 547-42.
. 11 U.S.C. § 547(g).
. CJD also relies on the analysis of an expert, Steve W. Browne, showing that of the 544 Cash Management Transfers made during the preference period (272 transfers from CJD and 272 transfers from Brooke Corp), four of the related transfers occurred the same day, 252 within one day, 13 within two days, and three within three days.
. Silverman Consulting, Inc. v. Canfor Wood Products Marketing (In re Payless Cashways, Inc.), 306 B.R. 243, 249 (8th Cir. BAP 2004).
. See, e.g., Official Plan Committee v. Expeditors Intern’l of Washington, Inc. (In re Gateway Pacific Corp.), 153 F.3d 915, 918-19 (8th Cir. 1998) (creditor’s alleged release of liens on receipt of payments for prior invoices not sufficient for contemporaneous-exchange defense because debtor did not know about liens and so could not have had required intent).
. Morse Operations, Inc. v. Goodway Graphics of Va., Inc. (In re Lease-A-Fleet, Inc.), 155 B.R. 666 (Bankr.E.D.Pa. 1993).
. Mat 672.
. Id. at 682.
. Littleton v. Hinton (In re Triple H Auto and Truck Sales, Inc.), 2009 WL 348858 (Bankr.S.D.Ala. Feb. 2, 2009).
. Id. at *5.
. Pogge v. Nolan (In re Nolan), 1997 WL 33479209 (Bankr.C.D.Ill. Oct. 15, 1997).
. Id. at *2-4.
. National City Bank v. Hotchkiss, 231 U.S. 50, 34 S.Ct. 20, 58 L.Ed. 115 (1913).
. See 4 William L. Norton, Jr., and William L. Norton III, Norton Bankruptcy Law & Practice 3d, § 66:35 at 66-157 (Thomson Reuters 2014); 5 Collier on Bankruptcy, ¶ 547.04[l][a],
. 4 Norton Bankr. L. & Practice 3d, § 66:35 at 66-157.
. In re Prescott, 805 F.2d 719, 728 (7th Cir. 1986) (quoting 4 Collier on Bankruptcy, ¶ 547.37 at 547-124).
. See Manchester v. First Bank & Trust Co. (In re Moses), 256 B.R. 641, 653 (10th Cir. BAP 2000) (execution of note with one-month maturity date and prepayment provisions disproved intent to make contemporaneous exchange); Brown v. Kitchenmaster (In re Hertzler Halstead Hospital), 334 B.R. 276, 289 (Bankr.D.Kan. 2005) (Chief Judge Nugent) (mutual intent to create short-term commercial loan is fatal to contemporaneous-exchange defense, noting contrary holding of In re Lease-A-Fleet, 155 B.R. 666 (Bankr.E.D.Pa. 1993)).
. Doc. 118 at 25.
. Official Plan Committee v. Expeditors Intern'l of Washington, Inc. (In re Gateway Pacific Corp.), 153 F.3d 915, 918-19 (8th Cir. 1998). The Trustee also cites Webster v. Scott & Reid Gen. Cont’ors, Inc. (In re NETtel Corp., Inc.), 458 B.R. 782, 800 (Bankr.D.C. 2011) for the same principle: there is no mutual intent to release a lien when one party is not aware of the purported lien.
. Id. at 918.
. Silver v. Avnet, Inc. (In re Silver), 130 B.R. 329 (Bankr.D.N.M. 1991).
. Id. at 329.
. Doc. 115 at 11, ¶ 32.
. Testimony of D. Clifford Daniels at 100:10-12.
. Id. at 130:16-23.
. Jubber v. SMC Elec. Prods., Inc. (In re C.W. Mining Co.), 987 F.3d 983, 987 (10th Cir. Aug. 10, 2015); Jobin v. McKay (In re M & L Bus. Mach. Co., Inc.), 84 F.3d 1330, 1339 (10th Cir. 1996).
. 5 Collier on Bankruptcy, ¶ 547.04[2][a][i] at 547-49 to 547-50.
. Fitzpatrick v. Central Commc'ns and Elecs., Inc. (In re Tenn. Valley Steel Corp.), 203 B.R. 949, 953-954 (Bankr.E.D.Tenn. 1996).
. Fidelity Savs. & Inv. Co. v. New Hope Baptist, 880 F.2d 1172, 1173 (10th Cir. 1989).
. Id. at 1177.
. Id. at 1178.
. Id.
. Redmond v. Ellis County Abstract & Title Co. (In re Liberty Livestock Co.), 198 B.R. 365 (Bankr.D.Kan. 1996).
. Id. at 373.
. Id.
. Davis v. I.P.H.F.H.A., Inc. (In re Amarillo Mesquite Grill, Inc.), 355 B.R. 826, 833-34 (Bankr.D.Kan. 2006).
. Rushton v. SMC Elec. Prod., Inc. (In re C.W. Mining Co.), 500 B.R. 635 (10th Cir. BAP 2013).
. Id. at 642.
. Id. (citing Huffman v. New Jersey Steel Corp. (In re Valley Steel Corp.), 182 B.R. 728 (Bankr.W.D.Va. 1995)).
. Id. at 643 (citing Gosch v. Burns (In re Finn), 909 F.2d 903, 907 (6th Cir. 1990) and Wood v. Stratos Prod. Dev., Inc. (In re Ahaza Sys., Inc.), 482 F.3d 1118, 1126 (9th Cir. 2007)).
. Id. (quoting In re Valley Steel, 182 B.R. at 735).
. Id.
. In re C.W. Mining, 798 F.3d 983
. Id. at 990 (quoting Union Bank v. Wolas, 502 U.S. 151, 160, 112 S.Ct. 527, 116 L.Ed.2d 514(1991)).
. Id. at 990.
. Id. at 989.
. Id. at 989.
. Id. at 990 (quoting In re Ahaza Sys., Inc., 482 F.3d at 1126).
. Doc. 120 at 18.
. Doc. 120 at 19.
. In re Tenn. Valley Steel Corp., 203 B.R. at 953-54.
. In re Valley Steel Corp., 182 B.R. at 728.
. Doc. 118 at 28 (quoting In re C.W. Mining, 500 B.R. at 643).
. In re Valley Steel Corp., 182 B.R. at 735.
. Doc. 118 at 29.
. In re C.W. Mining, 798 F.3d at 990 (quoting Union Bank v. Wolas, 502 U.S. at 160, 112 S.Ct. 527).
. In re Ahaza Sys., Inc., 482 F.3d at 1124.
. See Doc. 117 at 24.
. This attachment adopts the accounting method urged by CJD, which applied the subsequent-new-value defense under § 547(c)(4) to the transfers after September 17, 2008, with the $1,990,000 September 17, 2008 Cash Management Transfer removed from consideration. Doc. 115-14 at 27.
. Id.
. Doc. 117 at 25; Doc. 115-13 at 28.
. See Doc. 115-14 at 27.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- IN RE: BROOKE CORPORATION, Debtors. Christopher J. Redmond, Chapter 7 Trustee of Brooke Corporation, Brooke Capital Corporation, and Brooke Investments, Inc. v. CJD & Associates, LLC, a/k/a Davidson-Babcock
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published