Fokkena v. Huff (In re Huff)

349 B.R. 587
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. Iowa
DecidedAugust 4, 2006
DocketBankruptcy No. 05-05205; Adversary No. 05-30199-wle
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 349 B.R. 587 (Fokkena v. Huff (In re Huff)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fokkena v. Huff (In re Huff), 349 B.R. 587 (Iowa 2006).

Opinion

DECISION

WILLIAM L. EDMONDS, Bankruptcy Judge.

Habbo G. Fokkena, the United States trustee, objects to debtor’s discharge. Trial was held June 29, 2006 in Council Bluffs. John F. Schmillen appeared as attorney for Fokkena. Lloyd R. Bergantzel appeared as attorney for the debtor, Kelli J. Huff. This is a core proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 157(b)(2)(J).

Huff is 36 years old. She is divorced and has three children. Her son is 11 years old and lives with his father. The other two children, daughters ages 10 and 5, live with Huff in Treynor, Iowa.

Huff graduated from Nishna Valley Senior High School. She attended Wayne State College in Nebraska for one year and Northwest Missouri State University for two and one-half years. She studied accounting, but did not graduate. She says she has one year left to graduate.

She has been self-employed as a medical records transcriptionist. She transcribes medical notes dictated by the doctors contracting for her services. Prior to March 2004 she had five accounts. She supplied the recording devices to the doctors; some were hand-held tape recorders, others were hand-held digital recorders.

In 1994 or 1995, Huff and her then-husband, Brent Huff, began farming her parents’ farmground in Mills County, Iowa. Huffs father had had a stroke and could no longer farm the 180 acres. Kelli and Brent Huff farmed the land together through 2002, the year of their divorce.

In 2004, Huff farmed the ground with a friend, Rod Frink. They farmed the land on a 50/50 basis, dividing expenses and profit equally. Huff and Frink had a dispute over the profit. Frink threatened a lawsuit against Huff. She scheduled his claim in the amount of $25,000, and dis[589]*589closed a suit in her statement of affairs. She is uncertain whether he filed a lawsuit.

Huffs mother, Sharon Smith, also called Anne Smith, charges cash rent by the number of farmable, tillable acres. Although the farm is 180 acres, normally only 165 are tillable, and the amount of tillable acres in any year can vary by the amount of unfarmable, wet bottom ground.

Huff was seriously injured in an automobile accident in March 2004. She incurred nearly $200,000.00 in medical bills and had no insurance. After she was injured, she had difficulty in keeping up with her transcription work. She lost all but one account.

Huff alone farmed her mother’s farm-ground in 2005. Her mother charged her $85.00 per acre for approximately 165 acres, for a total payment of $14,025.00. They executed a lease on February 23, 2005 (exhibit 4). Huff was required to pay half of the total rent on March 1, 2005 ($7,012.50) and the remaining half after the crop had been harvested. On April 6 she paid $6,715.00 to her mother (exhibit 7). Also on February 23, 2005, Smith signed a lease of a grain bin to Huff for eight cents per bushel of stored grain. Huff did not sign the lease document, but she does not dispute it.

Huff did not farm the ground herself; she hired a custom operator named Merton Richter. Richter’s work was to include planting, spraying and combining; it did not include hauling harvested crops.

In order to farm in 2005, Huff obtained a line of credit from Houghton State Bank in Red Oak, Iowa. On April 1, 2005, Huff and her mother signed a line of credit agreement and a security agreement (exhibits 9 and 8). Smith was listed as a “borrower” on the documents, not merely as an accommodation party (id.). The line of credit was for $25,000.00 (exhibit 9). Advances on the line of credit were to be jointly approved by Huff and Smith (id.).

The first advance was on April 1, 2005 for $6,715.00 (exhibit 10). The loan proceeds were deposited in a joint account at the Houghton State Bank. Huff says that checks drawing on funds in the account required the signatures of both Huff and Smith. During 2005, loan advances were made on the following dates:

April 1 $6,715.00
April 13 7,100.00
April 18 2,923.00
June 20 5,000.00
July 13 669.00
September 1 250.00
September 6 1,500.00

(exhibit 10).

Prior to Huffs filing bankruptcy, the following checks were drawn on the account for the purposes shown:

April 6 Anne Smith 1st half cash rent
April 7 Pioneer corn and bean seed
April 18 Farm Service Co. anhydrous ammonia
June 17 Anne Smith 2nd half cash rent
July 12 Farm Bureau insurance

(exhibit 14). Each of the checks was signed by Huff and Smith. Smith had possession of the checkbook, and according to Huff, Smith handled the “business side” of Huffs farming operation. I infer that to mean the “paperwork side,” as Huff testified she herself made purchasing and sales decisions, selected the crops, and applied for government programs. Huff said she signed blank checks for her mother to use to pay bills.

Huff repaired her motor vehicle after the accident in 2004. She had a subsequent accident; the vehicle was a total loss. Her mother bought a new pickup truck in June 2005 and provided it to Huff for her use. Smith obtained a loan to purchase the pickup truck, and she makes the loan payments. On June 25, 2005, Huff and Smith signed an “addendum to the original farm contract” which provided that “proceeds from the farm” would be used to make Smith’s annual payment of $7,479.51 on the vehicle (exhibit 6).

[590]*590Huff filed her chapter 7 petition on July-14, 2005. By that time her crops of corn and beans were growing. Nothing in Huffs schedules indicated her 2005 farming operation. Her schedule of real property showed only her home in Hastings, Iowa. Her schedule of personal property listed only household goods valued at $2,565.00. She claimed the homestead and the household goods as exempt. She also claimed as exempt $1,000.00 in unpaid wages and tax refunds. However neither was listed on her schedule of personalty.

In her schedule of creditors holding secured claims, Huff listed the mortgagee on the homestead and her former husband who had obtained a lien against the home in the couple’s dissolution proceeding. Among her unsecured debts, she listed Rodney Frink’s claim from the 2004 crop year. Nowhere did the schedules show any assets or debts related to the 2005 farming operation. She did not list the unexpired leases on the land or the pickup. She did not list any debt to Houghton State Bank. She did not list her mother as a co-debtor to the bank. She did not list growing crops as an asset. She did not list the joint farm bank account. In her schedule of monthly expenses, she did not list expenses from the operation of a business, profession or farm. The only reference to farming was the disclosure in the statement of affairs that she had earned $23,000.00 from farming in 2004.

The meeting of creditors in Huffs case was held August 24, 2005. Attending the meeting besides Huff were her attorney Lloyd Bergantzel, Deborah Petersen the trustee, Brent Huff, her former husband, and Rodney Frink.

Deborah Petersen, the trustee, examined Huff.

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Bluebook (online)
349 B.R. 587, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fokkena-v-huff-in-re-huff-iasb-2006.