Cooper v. Southern Hunting Products, Ltd.

891 So. 2d 91, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 3191, 2004 WL 2955265
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 22, 2004
DocketNo. 39,166-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 891 So. 2d 91 (Cooper v. Southern Hunting Products, Ltd.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cooper v. Southern Hunting Products, Ltd., 891 So. 2d 91, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 3191, 2004 WL 2955265 (La. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinions

|, GASKINS, J.

The defendants appeal from a summary judgment granted in favor of the plaintiffs on the principal demand, as well as from the trial court’s granting of the plaintiffs’ exceptions of res judicata and prescription [93]*93as to the defendants’ counterclaims. We affirm.

FACTS

Southern Hunting Products, Ltd. (“Southern Hunting”), was owned by Claude C. Frey, Jane H. Frey, and Fulton Roberts, who are defendants in the instant case. The company attempted to construct and sell deer stands under the name “Ambusher.”

In 1999, John D. Cooper and Thad W. Cooper (“the Coopers”) invested more than $300,000 in Southern Hunting in exchange for 50 percent of the stock. Disputes soon arose. In August 2000, Thad Cooper removed several cabinets of business records from the company office in Winnsboro and took them to his office in Rayville.

In order to resolve their dispute, an agreement was confected that Southern Hunting would reacquire the Coopers’ stock. The Coopers, as part of the agreement, would pay off outstanding obligations owed by Frey and Roberts to First Family Finance. Southern Hunting executed a promissory note in the amount of $302,539, which covered the amount the Coopers were paying to First Family Finance, plus $200,000. The note was to be secured by all the collateral of Frey and Roberts held by First Family Finance, plus all assets of Southern Hunting (which were the same assets held under mortgage by their father, David Cooper III). Frey and Roberts further agreed that each would personally guarantee payment of the note in pthe amount of $151,269.63. Frey and his wife signed a collateral pledge, a collateral mortgage note for $102,374 and a collateral mortgage on two tracts of immovable property in Franklin Parish. The parties acknowledged that as of the execution of the agreement Southern Hunting was indebted to the Coopers for $318,000 and the Coopers were foregoing “a substantial portion” of that debt. However, should Southern Hunting or Frey and Roberts default, the parties agreed that the principal amount of the indebtedness would revert to the sum of $318,000. All documents were dated October 27, 2000. Thereafter, the defendants made no payments on the debt.

In April 2002, the Coopers filed a petition for ordinary process against Southern Hunting, the Freys, and Roberts. They asserted that they were owners and holders of a promissory note for $302,539 signed on October 27, 2000, by Frey as president of Southern Hunting and that the payments under the note were due and owing. According to the suit, the note was secured by several security devices, including a security agreement on the company’s equipment signed by Frey for the company. Roberts and Frey each were also sued under their continuing guaranty agreements obligating each for $151,269.63. The suit additionally sought recognition of the plaintiffs’ interest in the Freys’ mortgaged property.

In August 2002, the defendants filed an answer and counterclaim. As to the Coopers’ allegations, they asserted that the security devices were void due to a vice of consent and that they were signed under duress. They also asserted the lack of a valid debt. In reconvention, the defendants ladaimed that much of Southern Hunting’s financial problems were the result of the Coopers’ mismanagement. They also contended that Thad Cooper breached a fiduciary duty to the company when he removed the business records from the office. The Coopers filed a general denial to the defendants’ counterclaim.

In October 2002, the Coopers filed a motion for summary judgment. Attached to the motion was an affidavit by the Coo[94]*94pers essentially attesting to the facts set forth in the petition.

The defendants opposed the motion for summary judgment. Among the documents they filed in opposition was an affidavit by Misty Wilson, a Southern Hunting employee, in which she recounted an incident that happened prior to the agreement when the business records were taken the night after Thad Cooper came to the office to review them. She indicated that, without the business records, the defendants were unable to operate the company properly. In a supplemental affidavit, the Coopers stated that both sides were represented by counsel in the negotiation of the promissory note and security instruments.

In February 2003, the trial court denied the Coopers’ motion for summary judgment. In its written reasons, the trial court based the denial on its finding that discovery was not adequate at that time.

In November 2003, the Freys filed an amended counterclaim in which they contended that the mortgage had an error in the property description. In their answer, the Coopers stated that they acquired mortgages on property previously mortgaged to Associates Financial Services of America, Inc. 1¿(“Associates”).1 The property description in the Associates mortgage was the same one in the mortgage the Coopers took. In December 2003, the Freys filed a second amended counterclaim in which they claimed that the Coopers were engaged in a conspiracy with their father, David Cooper, to take over Southern Hunting. They further asserted that the “entire course of business was characterized by fraud and misrepresentation.”

In January 2004, the Coopers filed an exception of vagueness and an answer to the second amended counterclaim. They also filed peremptory exceptions of res judicata and prescription. As to res judi-cata, they claimed that the agreement entered into by the parties on October 27, 2000, was intended to resolve the issues raised in the defendants’ counterclaims. As these matters have been previously compromised, they could not be raised again. The prescription exception maintained that the matters raised in the counterclaims occurred more than a year before the pleadings were filed and thus were prescribed. Additionally, the Coopers filed a motion urging the trial court to reconsider their motion for summary judgment since discovery was about to be completed and all dispositive motions were to be heard on February 2, 2004.

On March 10, 2004, the trial court rendered written reasons for judgment on the Coopers’ motion for summary judgment and their exceptions. The court found that there was no factual basis for the defendants’ assertion of no consideration for the promissory note and security instruments. In his deposition, Frey admitted that the Coopers had |Binvested $313,251.60 in Southern Hunting and that they had paid off two notes totaling $96,786.93 he owed to Associates. Nor was there a basis for the claim of duress arising from the fear that the Coopers would file suit against Southern Hunting; the threat of legal action is not considered duress. As to the claim of lack of consent, the trial court observed that these documents were executed pursuant to negotiations by their respective attorneys to resolve business disputes among the parties. Although the Freys claimed that there was [95]*95an error in the property description in the mortgage they executed in favor of the Coopers, the court noted that Frey admitted that the mortgage to Associates had the same property description and that he intended for the Coopers to take a mortgage on the same property previously mortgaged to Associates. Finding no merit to the claims raised by the defendants, the trial court granted summary judgment in the Coopers’ favor.

As to the exceptions, the trial court found that the one-year prescriptive period of La. C.C. art. 3492 applied to the tortious counterclaims asserted by the defendants.

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Bluebook (online)
891 So. 2d 91, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 3191, 2004 WL 2955265, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cooper-v-southern-hunting-products-ltd-lactapp-2004.