Texas Bankruptcy Court Rejects Claim That Attorneys Were Non-Statutory Insiders

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled on a case involving a claim that a party was a non-statutory insider without ever deciding what legal test should apply.   U.S. Bank National Association v. The Village at Lakeridge, LLC, 138 S.Ct. 960 (2018).    Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta was not able to dodge the issue and has written an opinion which is helpful in applying the non-statutory insider test.   Case No. 18-5238, Hornberger v. Davis Cedillo & Mendoza (Bankr. W.D. Tex. 4/16/19).

Under 11 U.S.C. Sec. 547, a preferential transfer made to an ordinary vendor can be recovered if it was made during the 90 days prior to bankruptcy.   However, if made to an insider, the period expands to one year.   11 U.S.C. Sec. 101(31) has a list of persons who are automatically considered insiders, such as the officers of a company.  The statute uses the word "includes" prior to the list.  This means that the list is not exclusive.  Persons who who are not specifically defined to be insiders but have a sufficiently close relationship to the debtor are referred to as non-statutory insiders.

  

 What Happened

Larry Struthoff was a majority shareholder of Olmos Equipment, Inc. ("OEI")..   He was also an officer, shareholder and director of SWL Enterprises, Inc.  ("SWL").   SWL had two other shareholders, Long and Weynand.   OEI acquired the assets of SWL.   Weynand became concerned that Struthoff had cheated him out of his share of the sales proceeds.   Weynand sued OEL, SWL, Struthoff, Long and another shareholder of OEI named Janecke for $6 million.

As trial approached, OEI's longtime counsel became concerned that he did not have the bandwidth for a "bet the company" trial.   OEI hired Davis, Cedillo & Mendoza, Inc. ("DCM").   Where OEI and the insiders previously had separate counsel, DCM represented all of the defendants.   OEI paid the law firm $400,000.   Other parties paid the firm $225,000.

DCM was not able to rescue the company.  After trial, judgment was entered against OEI for $5.3 million. (Judgment was also entered against Struthoff and Janecke). OEI filed chapter 11.  It confirmed a plan which which created a litigation trust.  Ronald Hornberger, the trustee of the litigation trust, sued DCM to recover $400,000 in payments made by the Debtor during the period which was more than 90 days before bankruptcy but less than one year.  The litigation trustee brought claims to recover preferential transfers and fraudulent transfers.   

In order for the preferential transfer complaint to state a claim, the trustee needed to make plausible allegations that DCM was a non-statutory insider of the Debtor. This required Judge Gargotta to answer the question that the Supreme Court had dodged:  what is the test for a non-statutory insider?

The Test

 Judge Gargotta looked to Browning Interests v. Allison (In re Holloway), 955 F.2d 1008 (5th Cir. 1992) to find the proper test.   Holloway was a case under the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act.    The definition of an insider under TUFTA is identical to the one contained in the Bankruptcy Code.   Tex.Bus.&Com. Code Sec. 24.002(7).   Thus, the case involved a federal court interpreting a Texas statute which was based on a federal statute.  On top of that, it relied on precedents under the Bankruptcy Code.   The Court in Holloway said:

The cases which have considered whether insider status exists generally have focused on two factors in making that determination: (1) the closeness of the relationship between the transferee and the debtor; and (2) whether the transactions between the transferee and the debtor were conducted at arm's length.

Holloway at 1011.   Judge Gargotta also discussed the Tenth Circuit opinion in Austine v. Carl Zeiss Medical, Inc., 513 F.3d 1272 (10th Cir. 2008) which relied on similar reasoning.

The Ruling

 The litigation trustee argued that DCM exercised control over the Debtor because it persuaded the Debtor to pay for the attorneys' fees of Struthoff and SWL in addition to the Debtor.   The Court rejected this argument, stating:

The Court agrees with DCM that Plaintiff has not met the plausibility requirements of showing that DCM is a non-statutory insider of Debtor. Under the two-prong test of U.S. Medical, Inc, and Holloway, the Plaintiff has not shown that DCM had a sufficiently close relationship with OEI or that DCM exercised control or influence over the Debtor such that the transaction at issue was not done at arm’s length. The facts as deemed true only allege a contractual relationship between DCM and OEI and the course of dealing between the parties was that of an attorney-client. DCM represented OEI in complex civil lawsuit in state court that resulted in an adverse judgment. Plaintiff’s argument that Debtor’s By-Laws or other corporate documents precluded DCM from representing Debtor is unavailing—Struhoff had the requisite authority to engage DCM. Plaintiff has not cited with any specificity as to which corporate provisions were violated. Plaintiff’s assertion that DCM had access to OEI’s internal documents is insufficient to support a finding that DCM exercised control or influence over OEI. The fact that Debtor made payments to DCM for services performed is precisely what any other legal counsel would have requested in the allegations raised here. The payments, based on Plaintiff’s allegations, comport with what was required under DCM’s engagement letter. In sum, there are no facts to indicate that the transaction between the Parties’ was anything other than arm’s length.

Opinion, pp. 21-22.

An attorney representing a client in high-stakes litigation, whether it is a state court lawsuit or a chapter 11 proceeding, necessarily has a lot of influence over the client.  Because the client is counting on the attorney to guide it through legal peril, the attorney will have more impact on the client's decisions than say, the company's paper vendor.   The arms-length inquiry should focus, as the Court did here, on how the attorney's behavior comported with what attorneys normally do.   

Because this case found that the transactions were done at arms-length, it did not answer the question of what "not arms-length" would look like.   I tried to think of exampleswhere an attorney could exercise sufficient control to take the relationship outside of arms-length status:

1.  The attorney takes the wife of the Debtor's CEO hostage and threatens to kill her if payments are not timely made.  Admittedly, this would be a criminal violation as well.

2.  The client gives the attorney the password to its accounting software and allows the attorney to approve which bills get paid and which bills do not.

3.  The attorney requires that all funds belonging to the corporation be paid to a lockbox controlled by the attorney and the attorney only allows the client to use its funds after the attorney has deducted its fees.

These were extreme examples.   Here is one that is a bit closer:

The attorney and the company's CEO attend the same church and have gone on mission trips together.   The attorney and the CEO regularly dine at each other's home.   At one of these dinners, the attorney tells the CEO that the attorney's wife is receiving cancer treatment and that without the revenue coming in from the litigation, he would not be able to pay for her treatments.   Each week, the CEO asks the attorney how much money he needs and he pays that amount regardless of what the firm billed.     While the attorney in this hypothetical did not exercise improper influence over the generous CEO, the personal bond between the two men led the CEO to give the attorney treatment he would not provide to a third party vendor.  If you tweak the hypothetical slightly and the CEO paid each invoice the same day it was received, then it probably goes back to being arms-length.  While the relationship no doubt would influence the prompt payment, it is still within the range of ways that clients interact with their attorneys.

Post-script:

On August 17, 2019, I received an email from Larry Struthoff which stated "Sir, Who ever gave you the facts for the blog you posted surely misled you and gave you erroneous information. You have posted completely incorrect information about the basis of the case."   I based my blog post on the facts as found by Judge Gargotta in his opinion.   The primary focus of my article was whether Davis, Cedillo and Mendoza was a non-statutory insider.    While Mr. Stuthoff feels that he has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, he is not the focus of this article.   In writing posts about judicial opinions, I accept the facts as found by the Court unless there are serious reasons to doubt them.   I know that judges sometimes get things wrong.   In fact, I have filed many appeals based on perceived errors or law or fact.  However, as someone trying to focus on issues important to the legal profession, it is not my position to right every wrong or correct every injustice.

 

Stating a Cause of Action on an Avoidance Action After Iqbal

Pleading a claim to recover a preferential transfer is one of the most basic bankruptcy causes of action. Merely by establishing the date, amount and recipient of the transfer, the plaintiff can establish that a transfer was made, within 90 days before bankruptcy while the debtor was presumed to be insolvent. Most preference complaints include this basic information and then the conclusions that the payment was made on account of an antecedent debt and that the transferee received more than it would have received in a hypothetical chapter 7. Anyone who has practiced bankruptcy law for any period of time has seen (or drafted) the form complaint with an exhibit A describing the transfer. Preference complaints are sometimes paired with fraudulent conveyance claims making skeletal allegations.

After Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (2009) and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), the Supreme Court signaled that a higher standard would be required for pleading, one of plausibility. Instead of pleading the bare elements of a cause of action, the pleading must contain sufficient facts to make the claim plausible.

How does that apply to common avoidance actions? Judge Craig Gargotta addressed that question in Crescent Resources Litigation Trust v. Nexen Pruet, LLC, Adv. No. 11-1082 (Bankr. W.D. Tex. 1/23/12), which can be found here.

In Nexen Pruet, the Litigation Trust filed a complaint which alleged two causes of action: a preference claim and a fraudulent transfer claim. The complaint included the following:

*A description of the debtors’ cash management system;

*A statement that the debtors’ schedules, statement of financial affairs, disclosure statement and a declaration of the debtors’ CFO (none of which were attached) indicated that the debtors were insolvent at all relevant times;

*An exhibit describing the transfers by date, amount, invoice number and date the check cleared; and

*A statement of each cause of action.

The defendant filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action, alleging that the claims were based on “naked assertions devoid of further factual enhancement.” The Court found that both claims should be dismissed without prejudice.

The Court relied extensively upon In re Careamerica, Inc., 409 B.R. 737 (Bankr. E.D. N.C. 2009).

In the case of the preference claim, the Court found that the plaintiff had failed to allege sufficient facts to show that the transfer was made on account of an antecedent debt:

Notwithstanding the Court’s finding that the Trust has sufficiently pleaded the majority of the elements of a preferential transfer action, the Court finds that the Trust has not sufficiently pleaded the existence of an antecedent debt. By contrast to the cases cited above, including those which espouse even the most lenient of pleading standards, the Trust’s Complaint contains no description whatsoever of the Defendant, Nexen Pruet, much less a description of the nature of the relationship between Nexsen Pruet and the Debtors. The Complaint merely contains the conclusory allegation that “[t]he Transfers were made . . . for or on account of an antecedent debt owed by the particular Debtor to the Defendant before such Transfers were made,” with no factual allegations to support this contention (id. at 6). Without more, the Court is unable to infer the existence of an antecedent debt based on the conclusory allegations presented under Count I of the Complaint.

Opinion, p. 12.

With respect to the fraudulent conveyance claim, the Court found that the pleadings with regard to both insolvency and lack of reasonably equivalent had not been adequately pled, concluding:

In this case, like in Caremerica, the Trust’s allegations with respect to the fraudulent transfer claim contained in Count Two of the Complaint do no more than mirror the elements of § 548(a)(1)(B) (see docket no. 1, at 7). The Trust argues that the Complaint, read in its entirety, contains a “detailed pleading of insolvency” and a “clear pleading of reasonably equivalent value.” (Docket no 1 at 9.) Like in Caremerica, however, “other than dates, amounts, and names of transferees included in Exhibit B,” along with general conclusory allegations of insolvency and reasonably equivalent value, the Trust fails to support its allegations with factual assertions. (citation omitted).

First, with regard to insolvency, the Trust alleges that the Debtors’ Schedules, Statements of Financial Affairs, and Disclosure Statement, along with the declaration of the Debtors’ chief financial officer, reflect that the Debtors were “deeply insolvent at all times relevant to the complaint.” (Docket no. 1 at 5.) The Trust did not attach any of these documents to its Complaint nor did it refer the Court to any specific facts provided in these documents that would allow the Court to draw a reasonable inference of insolvency. The Trust further alleges that the Debtors were insolvent “under a number of tests” and then proceeds to describe each test, without providing the applicable facts to support a finding of insolvency under any of them (id.). Second, with regard to reasonably equivalent value, the Complaint contains only one sentence, which states, “The Debtor or Debtors identified on Exhibit B received less than the reasonably equivalent value in exchange for the Transfer(s).” (Docket no. 1, at 7.) In light of Iqbal and Twombly, this Court will not accept such “threadbare recitals of a cause of action’s elements, supported by mere conclusory statements.” (citation omitted).

Opinion, pp. 14-15.

The Nexen Pruet opinion has much different implications for the two causes of actions involved. With regard to preference claims, the opinion imposes only a minor burden. In performing its due diligence before filing suit, the plaintiff should have investigated the relationship between the debtor and the creditor and, in particular, should have reviewed the invoices submitted by the creditor. Thus, pleading facts with regard to an antecedent debt should not impose a significant burden. By the same token, it does not provide that much more information to the defendant, who presumably would know this information as well.

The fraudulent conveyance claim is another matter. A preference is a preference primarily because of timing. On the other hand, a fraudulent conveyance could be based on any number of scenarios from a payment made on the debt of another to a payment made to an insider based on made-up invoices. In this regard, the heightened pleading requirements provide useful information to the defendant, as well as requiring the plaintiff to have a theory which would survive scrutiny under Rule 9011. In many cases, a preference claim and a fraudulent conveyance claim will be mutually exclusive. Generally, an antecedent debt implies value. Thus, only an antecedent debt in a transaction for less than reasonably equivalent value could be actionable under both statutes. By requiring a higher standard for pleading fraudulent conveyance claims, the Court protects defendants from having to respond to potentially spurious claims.

Fifth Circuit Explains Earmarking

In order for a payment to be recovered as a preference under 11 U.S.C. Sec. 547, there must be a transfer of "an interest of the debtor in property." The earmarking doctrine provides a means to negate this element where the debtor never had control over the transferred property. The Fifth Circuit re-affirmed the earmarking doctrine in Matter of Entringer Bakeries, Inc., No. 07-30499 (5th Cir. 11/6/08), but found that it did not apply in the specific case.

In Entringer Bakeries, First Bank and Trust made a short term bridge loan to the debtor with the expectation that the debtor would obtain permanent SBA-backed financing. When the debtor obtained its new financing, it deposited the funds into its account and then wrote a check to FBT to pay off the old debt. The decision to extend the new financing proved unwise for the second lender, since the debtor filed bankruptcy about six weeks later.

The Trustee sued to recover the payoff to FBT as a preferential transfer. The bank defended the claim asserting that the new financing was intended to pay off its debt so that the payment was protected under the earmarking doctrine. The Fifth Circuit agreed that earmarking was still a viable defense, but found that it did not apply in the specific case. The relevant inquiry in earmarking is whether the debtor obtains control over the funds being transferred. If the debtor has control such that it can use the funds for whatever purposes it chooses, then earmarking does not apply regardless of the subjective intent of the parties.

The court made the following critical findings:

Here, Entringer had dispositive control over the Whitney loan proceeds; the money was Entringer's property once Whitney deposited the funds into Entringer's general account. . . . That is, Entringer could have done anything it wanted to do with the money from the Whitney loan, meaning that the parties did not "earmark" it to pay off the FBT debt. Gary Lorio, Whitney's loan officer, testified that Whitney did not control the money once it went into Entringer's bank account and that Entringer could have paid any of its creditors with that money. Mark Leunissen, Entringer's chief executive officer, agreed that the money from the Whitney loan was Entringer's money once it entered Entringer's general account.

Opinion at 9.

Thus, earmarking is not alchemy which transmutes a transfer into a non-transfer based on the intent of the parties. Instead, it only applies to cases where the debtor lacked the ability to affect the manner in which the funds were applied.