Home Federal Bank v. United States

62 Fed. Cl. 54, 2004 WL 2008917
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedSeptember 8, 2004
DocketNo. 95-541C
StatusPublished

This text of 62 Fed. Cl. 54 (Home Federal Bank v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Home Federal Bank v. United States, 62 Fed. Cl. 54, 2004 WL 2008917 (uscfc 2004).

Opinion

OPINION

YOCK, Senior Judge.

This is a Winstar-related breach of contract case. See Winstar Corp. v. United States, 25 Cl.Ct. 541 (1992) (“Winstar I”), aff'd, 64 F.3d 1531 (Fed.Cir.1995) (en banc) (“Winstar II”), aff'd, 518 U.S. 839, 116 S.Ct. 2432, 135 L.Ed.2d 964 (1996) (“Winstar III ”). Before the Court is a renewed cross-motion for summary judgment (on liability). The motion has been fully briefed, and the Court finds oral argument is unnecessary. For the reasons set forth below, the Defendant’s Renewed Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED.

Background

A. Regulatory and Procedural Setting

This case is one of many arising from the Government’s efforts to address problems that arose with thrift banking institutions (“thrifts”) during the 1980’s and early 1990’s. A detailed account of the situation in that banking sector during that time and after the enactment in 1989 of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (“FIRREA”), Pub.L. No. 101-73, 103 Stat. 183 (codified in scattered sections of title 12 of the U.S.Code, including 12 U.S.C. § 1464 (2000)), is provided in Winstar III.

[56]*56To summarize that situation, high interest rates and inflation in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s led to thrifts losing money on a continuing basis because the cost of deposits exceeded revenues from long-standing, fixed-rate, low-interest mortgages. Winstar III, 518 U.S. at 845, 116 S.Ct. 2432. The pertinent regulatory agencies, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (“FHLBB” or “Bank Board”), which chartered and regulated thrifts, and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (“FSLIC” or “Corporation”), which insured the deposits held by thrifts, responded, in relevant part, by often encouraging financially stronger banking institutions to merge with or to take over weak thrifts, sometimes with cash infusions from FSLIC, and typically with forms of assistance other than cash from the Bank Board. Id. at 846-51,116 S.Ct. 2432.

A primary means by which the Bank Board assisted and promoted such mergers was through regulatory accounting of “supervisory goodwill.” The Bank Board permitted the use of the purchase method of accounting for a “supervisory merger,” recognizing as goodwill the excess of the fair market value of the liabilities assumed over the fair market value of the assets acquired. This goodwill would be deemed regulatory capital, id. at 850-51, 116 S.Ct. 2432, rather than an intangible asset that would not count toward the merged bank’s regulatory capital as the Bank Board otherwise would have treated goodwill of this type.1 Further, the Bank Board allowed amortization of the supervisory goodwill over a period of years that frequently exceeded the life of the underlying asset-typically comprised of the mortgages held by the thrift acquired in a supervisory merger. Id. at 851-53, 116 S.Ct. 2432. “[This] treatment of supervisory goodwill as regulatory capital was attractive [to potential acquiring institutions] because it inflated the institution’s reserves, thereby allowing the thrift to leverage more loans (and, it hoped, make more profits).” Id. at 851, 116 S.Ct. 2432.

These measures by the Bank Board and FSLIC encouraged banking entities to take over failing thrifts but did not require FSLIC to expend cash. The hope and expectation of the Bank Board and FSLIC was that the regulatory treatment of supervisory goodwill as a capital asset would provide a bridge over the time it would take for inflation to abate and for a better balance to be achieved between costs of deposits and revenues from long-term loans. Id. at 845-18, 116 S.Ct. 2432. Thus, potential thrift failures would be averted and the direct monetary costs to the Government would be minimized. Continuing financial difficulties in the industry, however, led to the enactment of FIR-REA on August 9, 1989, which, among other things, required financial institutions to maintain minimum regulatory-capital requirements without regard to such intangibles as supervisory goodwill. See 12 U.S.C. § 1464(t). Disallowance of such regulatory capital caused numerous banks that had merged with troubled or failed thrifts to file actions in this Court asserting claims primarily founded on breach of contract theories.

On August 8, 1995, Home Federal Bank of Tennessee, FSB (“Home Federal” or the “plaintiff’) filed a Complaint in this Court against the United States (the “defendant” or the “Government”) alleging breach of contract, breach of contract implied in fact, and uncompensated Fifth Amendment takings.2 [57]*57The plaintiff subsequently withdrew its Fifth Amendment takings claim, and judgment was entered striking this claim (Count III) from the Complaint. See Court Order and Judgment filed Feb. 28, 2002. On July 14, 1997, Home Federal had filed Plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (as to liability) in regard to its contract claims (Counts I and II). On September 18, 1997, the Government responded to the plaintiffs motion and filed the Defendant’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment (as to liability). Various motion-related filings and procedural activities followed, including the reassignment of this ease to the present judge on February 1, 2002. On August 26, 2003, this Court issued its Opinion by which it denied the Plaintiffs Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (as to liability in all three of the transactions involved in this case), and granted in part and denied in part the Defendant’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment (as to liability in the three transactions).

Specifically, this Court granted the Defendant’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment as to the first two transactions, that is, the First Federal and Security Federal transactions, but denied the defendant’s cross-motion as to the third transaction, that is, the Second Federal transaction. The Court granted summary judgment as to the First Federal and Security Federal transactions based upon its findings that: (1) Principal Supervisory Agents (“PSA’s”) of the Bank Board did not possess contractual authority to “‘approve merger applications in which goodwill was included in assets’ ” until February 25, 1982, and that “the resolutions prior to 1982 effectively bar[red] regional agents from contracting for the use of goodwill,” Home Fed. Bank of Tenn., F.S.B. v. United States, 57 Fed.Cl. 676, 689 (2003), and (2) with respect to those two transactions it could “discern no mutual intent to enter into a contract regarding the use of goodwill, and thus, no contract was formed,” id. at 692. As to the Second Federal transaction, this Court believed that, based upon the factual record then before it, a fact-finding trial on liability was appropriate. In particular, the record suggested that Home Federal’s intent to use the purchase method of accounting with respect to the Second Federal merger may have been known and approved by the central Bank Board and not just the pertinent PSA.3

On September 10, 2003, the defendant filed a motion for reconsideration arguing that the Court also should have granted summary judgment with respect to the Second Federal transaction.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
62 Fed. Cl. 54, 2004 WL 2008917, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/home-federal-bank-v-united-states-uscfc-2004.