In re North American Cattle Co.

51 B.R. 822, 1985 Bankr. LEXIS 5673
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Michigan
DecidedJuly 22, 1985
DocketBankruptcy No. HG 85 00266
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 51 B.R. 822 (In re North American Cattle Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re North American Cattle Co., 51 B.R. 822, 1985 Bankr. LEXIS 5673 (W.D. Mich. 1985).

Opinion

OPINION

LAURENCE E. HOWARD, Bankruptcy Judge.

The debtor has moved this Court for permission to disburse lease payments to the investors for whom the payments were collected. The trade creditors’ committee objected that the investors were “de facto” owners of the debtor; therefore the lease payments would be property of the estate under 11 U.S.C. § 541, and the investors’ claims would be subordinated under 11 U.S.C. § 510(b) & (c). The investors’ committee has filed a motion for summary judgment on the objection under Bankruptcy Rules 9014 and 7056.

An examination of the pleadings, affidavits, and depositions submitted in this case reveals the following story. North American Cattle Corporation (“NACC”) has offered a dairy cow leasing program to the public as an investment since at least 1980. Under this program, the investor would purchase a certain number of cows from NACC, often through an intermediate. The investor would receive a bill of sale for that number of cows. Each cow was given an orange ear tag with an identification number on it, and these numbers would be reported to the investor on the bill of sale. Meanwhile NACC would have located a farmer interested in leasing the dairy cows. NACC would deliver the cows directly to the farmer. The farmer and investor would then execute a lease. The investor invariably would also execute an Inspection and Reporting Service Agreement (“IRSA”) with NACC. This agreement authorized NACC to collect the lease payments from the farmers and forward them to the investor, less a service charge.

Although NACC maintained the flow of payments to the investors until late 1984, upon the filing of the petition under Chapter 11 it became apparent that there were fewer cows than there were leases and that many farmers had ceased paying their rents. The debtor never informed the investors of this situation prior to filing its petition. The debtor-in-possession continued to collect rents from those farmers who were still paying. The debtor then decided to abrogate its IRSA’s and turn over the rents already collected to the investors who owned the cows the rents were paid on. The debtor so moved the court.

The trade creditors’ committee objected to the debtor’s motion, claiming that the investors are “de facto shareholders” (Brief in Support of Trade Creditors Committee’s Objection, at page 2), that the cows and the lease payments are property of the estate under 11 U.S.C. § 541, and that the investors’ claims should be subordinated under 11 U.S.C. § 510(b) & (c). The trade creditors’ committee argued all these points in opposition to summary judgment, and also maintained that summary judgment would be inappropriate at this time because it had not yet completed dis[824]*824covery. The investors admit that they may own “securities within the definition of 11 U.S.C. § 101(41), but deny the trade creditors’ committee’s other allegations.

For the purposes of this opinion the Court shall assume that the investors do own securities of the debtor.

The Court cannot agree with the trade creditors that if the investors own a security, it is stock. The Supreme Court has identified five attributes of common stock: “(i) the right to receive dividends contingent upon an apportionment of profits; (ii) negotiability; (iii) the ability to be pledged or hypothecated; (iv) the conferring of voting rights in proportion to the number of shares owned; and (v) the capacity to appreciate in value.” Landreth Timber Company v. Landreth, — U.S. —, 105 S.Ct. 2297, 2302, 85 L.Ed.2d 692 (1985). The uncontested affidavits filed along with supporting documents by many investors make it clear that the investors had no voting rights in the debtor. The investors did have certain rights as principals by virtue of the IRSA’s which made NACC their agent, but they could not thereby control the company, nor did their rights vary in proportion to the number of cows owned. The supporting documents also make it clear that the funds received by the investors were not “dividends contingent upon an apportionment of profits” but were actually the forwarded lease payments, which varied according to the different terms set by various leases, and then reduced by the service charge of five dollars per month per cow leased. One might argue that the cows could be negotiated or pledged, and that the cows could appreciate in value. But the cow is not the security. Rather, the security is the relationship between the issue and the purchaser created by the transaction. The relationship created here was at most a management contract, which might be negotiated or pledged, but which could not appreciate in and of itself. If the relationship is a security, it is most likely an investment contract as defined in Securities and Exchange Commission v. W.J. Howey Company, 328 U.S. 293, 66 S.Ct. 1100, 90 L.Ed. 1244 (1946), as “an investment of money in a common enterprise with profits to come solely from the efforts of others.” Id., at 301, 66 S.Ct. at 1104.

The Court is not deciding the question of whether or not the investors hold a security, let alone the question of whether it would be an investment contract. Rather, the observations demonstrate that whatever the investors’ relationship with the debt- or, they are not shareholders of the debtor. The trade creditors’ committee has argued that the investors are shareholders who own a share in the equity of the debtor, and that the debtor owns the cows. However, the investors are plainly not shareholders. Nor does the debtor own the cows. The debtor sold the cows to the investors, and gave each investor a bill of sale which identified the cows the investor owned. The lease ran from the investor to the farmer, and provided that the farmer would pay a certain rent per cow, pay transportation costs, replace deceased cows, care for and maintain the cows, etc. The IRSA’s gave the debtor no rights in the cows nor any responsibility for them. If NACC indemnified the debtor in any way for a farmer’s default the IRS A provided that it was purely as a volunteer and to the extent of the indemnity NACC was subro-gated to the investor’s rights against the farmer. The investor owned the cows and although he shifted many of the responsibilities of ownership, it was to the farmer, not the debtor. The investors are not shareholders of the debtor, nor are the cows and their lease proceeds corporate property of the debtor.

The discussion above also disposes of the trade creditors’ committee’s argument that under § 541 the cows and the lease proceeds are property of the debtor. Section 541 provides that all property in which the debtor had a legal or equitable interest at the commencement of the case becomes property of the estate to the extent of that interest. At oral argument the trade creditor’s counsel was unable to identify any interest of the debtor in the cows and pro[825]*825ceeds other than his shareholder argument rejected above.

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51 B.R. 822, 1985 Bankr. LEXIS 5673, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-north-american-cattle-co-miwd-1985.