Matter of EP Hayes, Inc.

29 B.R. 907
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedMay 11, 1983
Docket19-50224
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 29 B.R. 907 (Matter of EP Hayes, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, D. Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Matter of EP Hayes, Inc., 29 B.R. 907 (Conn. 1983).

Opinion

29 B.R. 907 (1983)

In the Matter of E.P. HAYES, INC., Debtor.
Bruce BECK, Trustee, Plaintiff,
v.
INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CREDIT CORPORATION, Defendant.

Bankruptcy No. 2-82-00711, Adv. No. 2-82-0605.

United States Bankruptcy Court, D. Connecticut.

May 11, 1983.

*908 Martin W. Hoffman, Hartford, Conn., for trustee-plaintiff.

Robert A. Greenspon, Stamford, Conn., and Stephen E. Goldman, Hartford, Conn., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

ROBERT L. KRECHEVSKY, Bankruptcy Judge.

I.

The question here, the facts being undisputed, is whether payments to a creditor pursuant to an assignment of payments executed by the debtor prior to the preference period but received by the creditor when the debtor was insolvent and within the preference period are avoidable under 11 U.S.C. § 547.[1]

II.

The debtor, E.P. Hayes, Inc., owned and operated a fleet of school buses providing pupil transportation services to a number of Connecticut towns. On July 30, 1982, the debtor filed a petition under chapter 11 and on August 24, 1982, the court ordered the appointment of a trustee. By complaint filed October 1, 1982, the trustee alleged that the defendant, International Harvester Credit Corporation (IHCC), received two payments within the preference period totaling $92,752.36 from funds of the debtor. In its answer, IHCC admitted that it received the payments but denied that they constituted preferences. IHCC alleged that the payments were made pursuant to an assignment executed by the debtor on October 22, 1979 which transferred the debtor's rights to earnings under a bus service contract with the Board of Education for the Town of Enfield, Connecticut (town) and that the payments were not property of the debtor's estate at the time of receipt by IHCC.

III.

At trial the parties established the following facts. On October 22, 1979, the debtor and IHCC executed a refinance agreement for $2,934,085.50 then due from the debtor to IHCC. This agreement granted IHCC a security interest in numerous motor vehicles of the debtor and contained the following covenant by the debtor to assign contract payments:

Furthermore, in consideration of this Refinance Agreement and for the purpose of additionally securing payments of the indebtedness herein described, Debtor, for itself, its successors and assigns, shall assign to IHCC, its successors or assigns, the sum of $65,201.90 per month being those payments, or a portion of *909 those payments, becoming due under its Pupil Transportation Contract with the Board of Education for the Town of Enfield, County of Hartford, State of Connecticut dated August 30, 1977 and any extension or replacement thereof, and Debtor shall authorize said Board of Education to pay monthly said sum of $65,201.90 due under said Pupil Transportation Contract or any extension or replacement thereof to IHCC to meet the Obligations of Debtor to IHCC pursuant to the provisions of this Refinance Agreement.

The debtor also executed an assignment which, in pertinent part, states:

E.P. Hayes, Inc. . . . (hereinafter referred to as "Assignor"), for value received, does hereby for itself, its successors and assigns, assign to INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CREDIT CORPORATION, a Delaware Corporation, (hereinafter referred to as "Assignee"), its successors and assigns, the sum of $65,201.90, per month, being a portion of those payments becoming due under its Pupil Transportation Contract with the Board of Education for the Town of Enfield County of Hartford, State of Connecticut, dated August 30, 1977 and as extended by instrument dated [blank] for the period commencing September 1, 1978, and authorizes said School District to pay monthly said sum of $65,201.90 due thereon under said Contract to Assignee to meet the obligations of E.P. Hayes, Inc. to the Assignee pursuant to the provisions of the Retail Installment Contract being dated September 10, 1979 and attached hereto and made a part hereof.

The town consented in writing to the assignment.[2]

Edward Hayes, Jr., the president of the debtor, testified that under its contract with the town the debtor periodically invoiced the town for pupil transportation services as rendered.[3] After the execution of the refinance agreement, the town would issue a check payable to IHCC and send it to the debtor,[4] who would then forward the check to IHCC. If the amount due the debtor on the invoice was greater than the amount assigned for that month to IHCC, the town issued a second check for the difference payable to the debtor. On six occasions between December 14, 1981 and July 26, 1982, Hayes sent a letter to the town requesting it not to pay all the monies due IHCC but to send a portion of those monies by check payable to the debtor or to other persons as directed by Hayes. The town complied in each instance. Hayes did not contact IHCC before seeking these payment diversions, and IHCC did not question the diversions until May of 1982. The payments to IHCC from the town occurred in April and May of 1982 in the amounts of $49,494.82 and $43,257.54, respectively.

IV.

Preference avoidance fulfills the original purpose of bankruptcy law—equality of distribution *910 to creditors of the assets of a debtor. Section 547 is directed toward bringing back into the estate property of the debtor transferred during the preference period. The specific issue present here is whether the transfer of the debtor's property took place in April and May of 1982 as the trustee contends, or on October 22, 1979, as IHCC alleges. The trustee bases his position on § 547(e)(3) which mandates that for preference purposes, "a transfer is not made until the debtor has acquired rights in the property transferred." He says that the payments to IHCC in April and May, 1982 were the transfer dates because prior thereto the debtor had no right to these payments since it had not performed the services giving rise to the right to receive the payments. In effect, the trustee is claiming that § 547(e)(3),[5] resurrects a distinction which since 1976 has been eliminated in the Uniform Commercial Code as enacted in Connecticut. Prior to 1976, Conn. Gen.Stat. § 42a-9-106 distinguished between rights to a payment already earned and rights to a payment yet to be earned by distinguishing between an "account" and a "contract right." An "account" was defined as "any right to payment for goods sold or leased or for services rendered which is not evidenced by an instrument or chattel paper." A "contract right" was defined as "any right to payment under a contract not yet earned by performance and not yet evidenced by an instrument or chattel paper." As presently enacted, § 42a-9-106 has eliminated these distinctions and defines an "account" as "any right to payment for goods sold or leased or for services rendered which is not evidenced by an instrument or chattel paper, whether or not it has been earned by performance."[6]

Under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898, a properly perfected assignment of a contract right was immune from attack by a trustee.

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