Greenville Riverboat, LLC v. Less, Getz & Lipman, P.L.L.C.

131 F. Supp. 2d 842, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19867, 2000 WL 33174384
District Court, S.D. Mississippi·Decided October 16, 2000·No. CIV. A. 3:00CV52LN·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

TOM S. LEE, Chief Judge.

This cause is before the court on the motions for leave to intervene of Investor Resource Services, Inc., Richard Langley, Jr., Joe Fox and Gaming Ventures, LLC (collectively the “promissory note interve-nors”); Investor Resource Services, Pin-son & Associates, P.A., Richard M. Greene, the estate of Bernece Rigirozzi, Barbara J. Archuletta and Rudy Marich (collectively the “shareholder interve-nors”); O.T. Marshall, Architects-Engineers and Oscar Thomas Marshall, IV; and Richard L. Macy (Macy), all made pursuant to Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and motions for summary judgment of defendants Greenville Marine Corporation (GMC); Less, Getz & Lippman, P.L.L.C. (LGL); and Rainbow Entertainment, Inc. (Rainbow) and the motion to dismiss the cross-claim of Rainbow or, in the alternative, motion for summary judgment of Premier Gaming Management, Inc. (Premier), all made pursuant to Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. After a recitation of the facts, the court addresses each motion in turn.

Facts

Some time prior to 1995, Rainbow, a member of plaintiff Greenville Riverboat, PLLC, entered into a lease agreement with GMC for property in Greenville, Mississippi, which Rainbow was to develop and use as a gaming site/casino. On January 1, 1995, Rainbow defaulted on the lease, failing to pay GMC rental payments in the amount of $250,000. GMC agreed to allow Rainbow to cure its default and assign its rights under the lease to Green-ville Riverboat. In turn, Rainbow and GMC entered into an Escrow and Assignment Agreement on January 20, 1995, pursuant to which Rainbow also executed a promissory note to GMC, dated January 1, 1995, in the amount of $250,000 — an amount sufficient to cure the default. 1 As collateral for the note and as evidenced by a security agreement executed by Rainbow, GMC received from Rainbow a pledge of Rainbow’s right to receive certain payments from Greenville Riverboat— payments provided for in the Greenville Riverboat Limited Liability Company Agreement. GMC perfected its security *845 interest by filing financing statements with the Mississippi Secretary of State and the Washington County Chancery Clerk. 2

Subsequently, Heidelberg & Woodliff, P.A., LGL and Premier became judgment creditors of Rainbow. LGL, which had performed legal services for Rainbow for which it had not been paid, obtained a judgment against Rainbow for $237,192.04 on November 27, 1996, and Premier obtained a $1,100,000 judgment against Rainbow on April 27,1998. 3

On January 20, 2000, Greenville Riverboat, anticipating that multiple claims might be made by these parties for money that it owed Rainbow under the Greenville Riverboat Limited Liability Compány Agreement, filed its complaint in this cause for declaratory and interpleader relief. Thereafter, on March 24, 2000, Greenville Riverboat deposited with the court the sum of $525,000, representing a distribution owed Rainbow under the Greenville Riverboat LLC Agreement, which deposit was followed on May 2, 2000 by an additional deposit of $975,000 owed by Greenville Riverboat to Rainbow under the LLC Agreement. In June, shortly after these funds were deposited, each of the named claimant defendants separately moved for summary judgment, asserting their entitlement to a share of the money. Subsequently, however, a number of motions to intervene were filed by various persons and entities, each claiming a right to intervene based on an alleged entitlement to some portion of the interpled fund. All of these various motions for summary judgment and to intervene have now been briefed by the parties and are before the court for decision. The court will first address the motions to intervene.

Motions to Intervene

Those persons to which the court will refer as the “promissory note intervenors” seek to intervene “in order to protect their security interest in funds which have been interpled by Greenville Riverboat.” Another group of proposed intervenors, along with an individual movant, Richard Macy, are shareholders of Rainbow who allege that they have been the victim of securities laws violations, and fraud and misrepresentation by Rainbow and request to intervene so that they may assert a cross-claim against Rainbow for these alleged wrongs. Finally, O.T. Marshall, Architects-Engineers and its owner, Oscar Thomas Marshall, IV, have moved to intervene asserting that they have a claim to a portion of the interpled funds based on a judgment recently recovered against Rainbow in a Tennessee state court which has been enrolled in the Circuit Court of Washington County, Mississippi.

The court has considered the mem-oranda and submissions of the parties in connection with these several motions and concludes as follows. First, the motions of the shareholder intervenors and Macy are due to be denied. 4 These movants have no judgment against Rainbow and hence have no existing, enforceable claim to the funds in question, or to any funds from Rainbow, for that matter; they profess a right to a potential recovery from the fund based on nothing more than factual allegations of wrongdoing by Rainbow. This is plainly insufficient to warrant their intervention, whether permissively or as of right. Without a judgment, the claims of these proposed intervenors are speculative at best; and since none of them can clearly show that their interests in the subject matter of this action are “direct, substantial [and] *846 legally protectable,” as is required by the Fifth Circuit of a party seeking to intervene, Sierra Club v. Espy, 18 F.3d 1202, 1207 (5th Cir.1994), their motions to intervene will be denied.

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Greenville Riverboat, LLC v. Less, Getz & Lipman, P.L.L.C., 131 F. Supp. 2d 842, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19867, 2000 WL 33174384 (S.D. Miss. 2000).

131 F. Supp. 2d 842 (Greenville Riverboat, LLC v. Less, Getz & Lipman, P.L.L.C.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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