Grain Land Coop v. Kar Kim Farms, Inc.

199 F.3d 983, 40 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 391
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedDecember 15, 1999
Docket98-3217, 98-3304
StatusPublished
Cited by66 cases

This text of 199 F.3d 983 (Grain Land Coop v. Kar Kim Farms, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Grain Land Coop v. Kar Kim Farms, Inc., 199 F.3d 983, 40 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 391 (8th Cir. 1999).

Opinion

HEANEY, Circuit Judge.

The Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), 7 U.S.C. §§ 1-25 (1999), requires that transactions in commodity futures contracts take place only under the rules of a board of trade that has been designated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Excluded from regulation under the CEA are contracts for “any sale of any cash commodity for deferred shipment or delivery,” 7 U.S.C. § la(ll), otherwise known as cash-forward contracts. In this case, we are called upon to consider the CEA’s application to a particular arrangement for the sale of grain by a farmer to a grain elevator, the Hedge-to-Arrive or *987 Flex-Hedge-to-Arrive contract (HTA), as well as certain state-law claims arising from that arrangement.

I. Background

Between May and September of 1995, Paul Obermeyer entered into five HTAs with Grain Land Coop (Grain Land) pertaining to corn. The HTA arrangement worked as follows: Obermeyer agreed to deliver at an unspecified time a fixed quantity and grade of grain to Grain Land. The per-bushel sale price was determined by reference to a futures contract price from the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) for March 1996, plus or minus a variable component referred to as “basis.” Basis is the difference between the price of the designated futures contract and the cash price for that same commodity. While the CBOT reference price was fixed at the time of the contract, the basis was allowed to float until Obermeyer elected to fix it, at a point prior to the “twenty-fifth day preceding the futures month of delivery.” If Obermeyer failed to set basis prior to that day, Grain Land had the right to set basis and thereby set the sale price for the grain.

The contract also called for Grain Land to establish an offsetting “hedge” transaction by taking a “short,” or sell, position on the CBOT equal to its buy obligation under the HTA. The elevator maintained a margin account with the exchange, and assumed responsibility for “margin calls” on the hedge position, increasing the account if rising futures prices caused the equity in the account to decline, as well as covering any commissions resulting from the CBOT transaction. Obermeyer’s HTA contract for corn allowed him to “roll,” or postpone, delivery to a later date. When Obermeyer elected to defer delivery, Grain Land also rolled its hedge, buying back its existing short position and taking a new position in the new delivery month. Any gain or loss Grain Land realized in rolling the hedge was added to or subtracted from the original futures reference price. In essence, the rolling provision allowed Ob-ermeyer to take advantage of rising cash prices by selling his grain on the cash market and deferring delivery under the HTA.

The documents intended to create this arrangement, however, are somewhat less than clear. They begin by reciting the terms of the hedge transaction (grain, grade, quantity, and futures month), and list a destination of Kiester (a small town in south-central Minnesota) and an “Arrival Period” designated “OPEN.” The contracts go on to define basis and the provisions for setting basis, and establish Grain Land’s responsibility for margin and commissions resulting from the hedge. The contracts further provide that Obermeyer must set basis on or before the “twenty-fifth day preceding the futures month of delivery”; that Obermeyer must pay two cents per bushel to roll; and that Ober-meyer “has the right to cancel [the] futures contract” for five cents per bushel plus or minus the accumulated spread. Finally, the contracts provide that in order to collect gains, Obermeyer “must make a delivery of grain sometime.”

Changes in the price of corn beginning in the fall of 1994 led many producers to roll their delivery obligations. Specifically, both supply and demand factors conspired to drive up the price of corn. 1 Rather than eventually falling, as farmers expected, prices continued to rise through 1995 and early 1996, creating an unprecedented market “inversion.” In the inverted market, demand for grain was so strong that buyers were willing to pay a premium for immediate delivery, causing prices for futures contracts with more immediate delivery dates to exceed prices for futures contracts with delivery dates that were further out.

*988 Some farmers responded to the market inversion by rolling their HTA delivery obligations and selling their grain on the cash market, thereby obtaining higher prices than they would have obtained under their HTA contracts. Obermeyer elected in February 1996 to roll his HTAs from March to May. Under normal market conditions, producers might have been able to cover their remaining short positions by waiting until grain prices fell. However, corn prices did not drop, prompting some producers to further roll their contracts, which caused their HTA per-bushel prices to drop accordingly. Likewise, each time a producer rolled an HTA, grain merchants like Grain Land realized losses on short futures positions and had to meet mounting margin calls. 2

II. The Lawsuit

In response to these market conditions, on April 4, 1996, Grain Land notified its producers of a series of “policy changes” adopted by its Board of Directors. Pursuant to these policy changes, Grain Land announced that it was terminating all outstanding HTAs, which permitted farmers to roll their delivery obligations, and requiring the execution of new contracts. Under the new contracts, a farmer who wished to roll his delivery obligation would be required either to maintain a cash deposit with Grain Land to cover possible rises in futures prices, or to purchase a “price protection rider” from Grain Land. On April 15, a group of more than 100 producers responded through counsel, insisting that their existing HTAs allowed them to roll their delivery obligations “for as long as they desired to do so,” and demanding assurances that Grain Land would continue to honor the contracts. Grain Land replied on April 17, stating it would honor “any legal obligation” to roll the contracts until they were terminated, but that “[c]ontract holders who desire[d] to roll the hedge to arrive contracts beyond December 1996, must notify Grain Land prior to June 25, 1996 and enter into a new contract to do so.” The producers refused.

In August 1996, Grain Land brought suit in various Minnesota state courts against approximately 160 farmers. Each defendant was a member of the cooperative and was a party to an HTA with an outstanding delivery obligation. In September 1996, the farmers removed the actions to the district court, which ordered the creation of a “master docket and case file” and directed the parties to file “master pleadings.” Grain Land filed its master complaint in January 1997, seeking declaratory judgments (1) that the HTAs were forward contracts excluded by the CEA, or in the alternative, that even if the contracts were subject to the CEA, they were nevertheless enforceable between the parties; and (2) that the farmers were thereby obligated to deliver grain or pay damages for breaching the HTAs. Grain Land also brought state-law claims against the farmers for breach of contract. 3

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
199 F.3d 983, 40 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 391, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/grain-land-coop-v-kar-kim-farms-inc-ca8-1999.