In re the Dissolution of Quail Aero Service, Inc.

300 A.D.2d 800, 755 N.Y.S.2d 103, 2002 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 12119
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedDecember 12, 2002
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 300 A.D.2d 800 (In re the Dissolution of Quail Aero Service, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re the Dissolution of Quail Aero Service, Inc., 300 A.D.2d 800, 755 N.Y.S.2d 103, 2002 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 12119 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

—Peters, J.

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court (Reilly, Jr., J.), entered September 29, 2001 in Schenectady County, which, inter alia, dismissed petitioner’s application, in a proceeding pursuant to Business Corporation Law article 11, to direct the judicial dissolution of respondent.

Respondent is a closely held corporation with its outstanding shares of common stock equally owned by Lewis Golub, Robert Higgins and Albert Lawrence. Its sole corporate purpose was not to make a profit, but to own, operate and make available for use by its shareholders its principal asset, a 1983 Beech-craft King Air B200 airplane. To purchase this asset, the three shareholders borrowed $1,121,000 from Chase Manhattan Bank (hereinafter Chase), in their individual capacities, pledging the plane as collateral; respondent guaranteed this loan and was therefore secondarily liable.

Pursuant to a verbal shareholders’ agreement, each would pay a minimum amount of flight time per year to cover the costs of maintaining and operating the airplane; these payments were respondent’s only source of revenue. They also agreed that any additional operating expenses, as well as any liability on the Chase loan, would be paid for equally. In accordance with this agreement, all shareholders paid one third of the amount due on the Chase loan, along with the minimum usage requirement, until January 1997, one month prior to Lawrence’s filing for bankruptcy under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code (11 USC). Such filing resulted in the appointment of Jeffrey Cohen as trustee of the bankruptcy estate (hereinafter trustee) who thereby became the owner of Lawrence’s shares of respondent’s stock. Thereafter, to avoid foreclosure on the airplane, Golub and Higgins paid all of Lawrence’s monthly payments; the bankruptcy estate failed to make any payments on behalf of Lawrence.

On March 9, 2000, the trustee received an offer from Equinox Air L.L.C. to purchase his share of respondent’s stock. On the same day, Golub and Higgins called a shareholders meeting [801]*801during which they adopted a resolution authorizing respondent to obtain a new loan to satisfy the balance of the Chase loan. The refinancing contemplated by the Board of Directors, through Golub and Higgins with the trustee objecting, was pursued on the theory that refinancing was necessary to prevent default and foreclosure and to ensure that respondent’s balance sheet more accurately reflected its actual assets and liabilities.

On March 13, 2000, the trustee made a motion in the bankruptcy proceeding to have the sale of his shares approved. On the same day, Golub and Higgins noticed another shareholders meeting to consider having respondent execute notes payable to themselves as reimbursement for the moneys paid on behalf of Lawrence. On March 16, 2000, the trustee successfully acquired a temporary restraining order from the Bankruptcy Court to enjoin the shareholders meeting by contending, inter alia, that respondent’s increased debt would destroy the outstanding offer to purchase respondent’s stock. Respondent, Golub and Higgins consented to a continuation of the temporary restraining order until a hearing set for April 6, 2000. At the same time, Golub and Higgins filed an administrative expense claim in the bankruptcy proceeding seeking to recover, as costs of preserving the estate, certain funds that they advanced to respondent on Lawrence’s behalf. Prior to the decision on the administrative expense claim, respondent, Golub and Higgins withdrew their voluntary consent to a continuation of any restraint preventing respondent and its Board of Directors from taking corporate action. On December 13, 2000, the Bankruptcy Court denied the administrative expense claim.

By order dated January 17, 2001, Bankruptcy Court permitted Equinox to withdraw its offer of purchase. On January 18, 2001, after the expiration of the March 16, 2000 temporary restraining order and just prior to the expiration of a second restraining order, the trustee filed an unsuccessful motion to extend the injunction to prevent the issuance of corporate promissory notes to Golub and Higgins. Golub and Higgins then convened a shareholders meeting of respondent on January 26, 2001 which authorized the issuance of promissory notes to themselves, which were to be satisfied by the issuance of additional shares of common stock. It further authorized the offer of an option to the trustee to repay the notes on the shareholder loans, thereby extinguishing Golub’s and Higgins’s equity conversion rights.

Based on these actions, the trustee commenced this proceeding to bring about a corporate dissolution of respondent. [802]*802Supreme Court, by order dated September 29, 2001, dismissed the petition. Following Supreme Court’s decision, petitioner, the Superintendent of Insurance, as liquidator of the United Community Insurance Company (an insolvent corporation owned by Lawrence), bought the trustee’s 10 shares of respondent’s stock and the right to prosecute the current appeal. Petitioner now appeals the dismissal of the trustee’s petition.

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Bluebook (online)
300 A.D.2d 800, 755 N.Y.S.2d 103, 2002 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 12119, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-dissolution-of-quail-aero-service-inc-nyappdiv-2002.