Keck v. National Farmers Organization (In re Sandy Lake Transfer Inc.)

44 B.R. 889, 1984 Bankr. LEXIS 4497
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedDecember 6, 1984
DocketBankruptcy No. 82-00630; Adv. No. 83-0228
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 44 B.R. 889 (Keck v. National Farmers Organization (In re Sandy Lake Transfer Inc.)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Keck v. National Farmers Organization (In re Sandy Lake Transfer Inc.), 44 B.R. 889, 1984 Bankr. LEXIS 4497 (W.D. Pa. 1984).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON TRUSTEE’S SUIT FOR TURNOVER OF MILK HANDLING AND PROCESSING EQUIPMENT

WM. B. WASHABAUGH, Bankruptcy Judge:

At issue in the within action for turnover of the Trustee of Sandy Lake Transfer, Inc., (hereinafter called debtor) against the National Farmers Organization, (NFO), et al, is the title to and right to possession of certain milk handling and processing equipment in the possession of NFO and/or their proceeds of sale.

The debtor was incorporated August 31, 1972 for the purpose of holding title to equipment and facilities to be used by the defendant, NFO, in marketing milk for a [890]*890group of milk producers in NFO’s Pittsburgh marketing area then comprised of 31 counties in western Pennsylvania, 17 in eastern Ohio and 3 in western New York. It is agreed that the laboratory equipment listed on plaintiffs Exhibit No. 2 which it then owned belongs to the plaintiff-trustee, but in dispute is whether the milk handling and processing equipment listed on Schedule “A” to the plaintiffs complaint purchased by the debtor from the Crisci Food Equipment Company under a lease agreement dated September 15, 1975 at plaintiffs Exhibit 1 providing for payment of the purchase price of $196,171.20 by a downpayment of $2,740.00 and 71 monthly installments of the same amount beginning September 15, 1975 and a final payment of $100.00 on August 15, 1981 is its property or that of the defendant, NFO, which made the final payment of $100.00 with its own funds and the down payments and the $2,740.00 monthly installments through deductions from the sale proceeds of the milk delivered to it by the producers before computing and forwarding the net sums due the producers therefor in pursuance of the agreements of the parties as hereinafter explained.

NFO located markets for the milk delivered to its reload station by the producers, complied with testing regulations of the United States Department of Agriculture, negotiated prices for sales of the milk and made delivery thereof by truckload in tanks mounted on or built into trucks apparently furnished by the debtor, and after allocating and deducting its costs and expenses including the lease-purchase payments from the amounts realized from the shares of the respective producers, remitted them the share of the net proceeds of sale to which each was entitled, all in accordance with the agreements between it and said producers at defendant’s Exhibits 3 and 4 who were members of the NFO in the Pittsburgh marketing area and simultaneously incorporators of and members or stockholders in the now bankrupt debtor-corporation (NFO performed similar services under identical arrangements and agreements with milk producers in other districts and marketing areas throughout the entire United States).

The witnesses agree, including the operating officers and employees of NFO from both its national and local headquarters, that it was NFO’s uniform policy not to take title to or ownership of the equipment and facilities it used on behalf of local milk producers to perform its functions in the various marketing areas, and that it was for the purpose of holding title to such equipment in the Pittsburgh marketing area that the debtor-corporation, Sandy Lake Transfer, Inc., was formed in 1972. They also agree that although the debtor was incorporated in the name of Sandy Lake Transfer, Inc., said debtor was uniformly known as Sandy Lake Reload because of the necessity of having deliveries of their milk made by the milk producers to the central reload station operated by NFO for sale and redelivery to the purchasers of said milk on their behalf, and further, that the debtor, Sandy Lake Transfer, Inc., that purchased the milk processing and handling equipment here at issue listed on Schedule “A” to plaintiff’s complaint is one and the same entity as the Sandy Lake Reload Corporation listed as the purchaser-lessee of said equipment under said lease agreement, plaintiff’s Exhibit 1, September 15, 1975; that it has undisputed title to the laboratory equipment at plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 2 it previously acquired after its incorporation in 1972 for the purpose of holding to such equipment and that said entity was incorporated in the name of Sandy Lake Transfer, Inc. August 31, 1972 instead of Sandy Lake Reload Corporation by which it was known, and that the debtor’s Articles of Incorporation recite its principle purposes as that of

“(owning, leasing, or controlling) land and facilities through which members of the National Farmers Association may market their milk .... and to lease, maintain, establish such facilities as a collection point for carrying out such purposes” (Articles of Incorporation at plaintiff’s Exhibit 3);

[891]*891and finally, that plaintiffs debtor is indisputably one and the same entity as the purchaser of the equipment under the Lease Agreement at plaintiffs Exhibit 1 in 1975 and the owner of the previously acquired equipment listed in Exhibit No. 2 incorporated as Sandy Lake Transfer, Inc. instead of Sandy Lake Reload by which it was commonly known.

The lease or purchase price of the equipment listed on schedule “A” to the complaint was paid for in the installments called for under the lease-purchase agreement by August 15, 1981 through payments of NFO from receipts from the sales of the milk which it distributed to the milk producers: after deducting said lease payments and its other expenses from the gross proceeds of sale it allocated and distributed the net proceeds to said producers (the final payment of $100.00 it appears to have made from its own funds).

Before moving the seat of its Pittsburgh marketing area operations from Sandy Lake to Falconer, New York because of increases in the volume of milk produced and sold in the latter vicinity in most years subsequent to 1975, it was decided by NFO that it was unwilling to take title to the additional equipment needed for the increased operations and also, after investigation, that the milk producers in the Falconer, New York vicinity were also unwilling to take title thereto. In addition, that neither NFO nor the producers in the Falconer vicinity would take the responsibility of arranging the financing and guaranteeing payment of the purchase price required by the seller, and that the only group or entity willing to purchase and take title to the equipment and guarantee its payment were the producers in the Sandy Lake vicinity through the debtor-corporation, Sandy Lake Transfer, Inc., also known as Sandy Lake Reload.

NFO introduced reports of receipts and utilization at defendant’s Exhibit No. 2 to show that in the years 1977,1978, and 1979 the number of pounds of milk it serviced increased more in the Falconer, New York vicinity more than in the Sandy Lake area, and as stated, various witnesses testified to that effect. It appears to have made a slight deviation from its usual practices by leasing a building in that vicinity from the co-defendant, Falconer Realty Corporation, under the lease introduced in evidence as defendant’s Exhibit No. 5 as headquarters for its operation in the new location. Falconer Realty is not claiming title to or disputing title to or ownership of the milk handling and producing equipment here at issue or the laboratory equipment the debt- or admittedly still owns and was joined as a co-defendant in the event it should claim any of it as being fixtures attached to its building which is not the case.

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44 B.R. 889, 1984 Bankr. LEXIS 4497, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/keck-v-national-farmers-organization-in-re-sandy-lake-transfer-inc-pawd-1984.