McCormack Terminal Co. v. F.A. Potts & Co. (In re F.A. Potts & Co.)

70 B.R. 894, 1987 Bankr. LEXIS 351
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 10, 1987
DocketBankruptcy No. 81-03639 T; Adv. No. 82-1467
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 70 B.R. 894 (McCormack Terminal Co. v. F.A. Potts & Co. (In re F.A. Potts & Co.)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McCormack Terminal Co. v. F.A. Potts & Co. (In re F.A. Potts & Co.), 70 B.R. 894, 1987 Bankr. LEXIS 351 (Pa. 1987).

Opinion

OPINION

THOMAS M. TWARDOWSKI, Bankruptcy Judge.

In this adversary proceeding, the plaintiff, McCormack Terminal Company, Inc. (“McCormack”) seeks to establish a proof of claim against F.A. Potts and Co., Inc. (“Potts”), the Chapter 11 debtor/defendant, in an amount in excess of $15,000,000.00 [896]*896based upon an alleged pre-petition breach of contract by Potts. Potts denies any liability to McCormack and filed a counterclaim for more than $4,000,000.00.

Following a lengthy trial, we denied all relief requested by McCormack and entered judgment in favor of Potts on one count of its counterclaim in the amount of $374,418.55. We denied all other relief on Potts’ counterclaim. McCormack then appealed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Potts did not file a cross-appeal. For reasons discussed infra, the District Court reversed our decision denying all relief to McCormack and remanded this matter to us for further proceedings pertaining to McCormack’s claim. The District Court affirmed our judgment granting Potts’ counterclaim in the amount of $374,418.55. Therefore, Potts' counterclaim is not before us upon remand.

Our prior lengthy and detailed Opinion is reported at 42 B.R. 712 (Bankr.E.D.Pa.1984). In that Opinion, we agreed with Potts’ interpretation of the Agreement between the parties and, therefore, concluded that Potts had not breached the Agreement and, thus, was not liable in any respect to McCormack. We found that the language of the indisputably fully integrated Agreement unambiguously supported Potts’ interpretation thereof. Therefore, we did not consider the extrinsic evidence regarding the parties’ contractual intent which was proferred by both parties, particularly by McCormack.

In its Memorandum, the District Court ruled that the Agreement was ambiguous and remanded the matter to us for consideration of the aforementioned extrinsic evidence. For the following reasons, and after having carefully and fully considered the Agreement, and all of the other evidence relating to the parties’ contractual intent, we conclude that Potts’ interpretation of the Agreement is correct and that, therefore, Potts did not breach the Agreement and has no liability to McCormack.

McCormack is a New Jersey corporation which owns and operates a rail and water terminal facility (“the Terminal”) located in South Amboy, New Jersey. Potts is a New York corporation, with its principal place of business located in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Potts is engaged in the business of buying and selling coal and related materials.

The Agreement in question between the parties was executed on December 23, 1980. The issue before us is the proper interpretation of Potts’ payment obligations under the Agreement. In short, if we accept Potts’ interpretation thereof, Potts has no liability to McCormack. If we accept McCormack’s interpretation, Potts may be liable to McCormack for breach of contract.

In general, the Agreement provided that, in return for certain payments made by Potts to McCormack, Potts was granted exclusive use of the Terminal for five years beginning on April 1, 1981 and McCormack was to perform various services regarding the product1 shipped by Potts to the Terminal. Such services included unloading the product from railcars at specified rates, storing it at the Terminal, and loading it onto barges at specified rates.

The disputed provisions of the Agreement are paragraphs 5 and 6. Paragraph 5 was entitled “Barges and Tugs.” It stated in part: “Barging of product from the terminal to ship'side is part of the handling services under this Agreement.” Paragraph 5 further stated: “The barge and tug owners shall bill MTC,2 which shall pay such bills when due.... As consideration for the service performed by MTC pursuant to this paragraph 5, MTC shall be promptly reimbursed at its cost plus 10% for services rendered.” These paragraph 5 services are known as “marine services.”

Paragraph 6 of the Agreement stated in its entirety:

[897]*8976. Payments. In consideration of the services to be rendered by MTC as above, Potts will pay MTC:
(a) $250,000 upon signing of this Agreement by both parties.
(b) $250,000 by May 1, 1981 and on or before the first day of each month thereafter through the duration of this Agreement.
(c) MTC shall credit Potts in the full amount of payments received as above, and shall bill against that credit periodically as services are rendered on the following basis:
(i) Two dollars ($2.00) per ton for product unloaded from railroad cars at the terminal site.
(ii) One dollar ($1.00) per ton for product loaded into barges at the dock side of the terminal site.
(iii) Amounts due pursuant to paragraph five (5) hereof.
(iv) As of April 1, 1982 and each year thereafter, three dollars ($3.00) per ton for each ton, if any, whereby the total tonnage of product delivered by Potts to the terminal during the preceding 12 months was less than 1,000,000 tons.
(d) The amount of excess (if any) of such billings (figured on the basis stated above) over the then credit for Potts referred to above, on or. before the 10th day following billing for any month in which such excess (if any) arose.

The monetary figures stated in paragraph 6(b) and (c) were subject to cost-of-living adjustments every six months, according to paragraph 7 of the Agreement. Beginning on July 1, 1981, the paragraph 6(b) payment obligation increased from $250,000.00 to $256,665.00.

The critical dispute in the interpretation of the Agreement is whether, as McCor-mack contends, charges for paragraph 5 marine services were to be paid independently of and in addition to the paragraph 6(a) and (b) payments, with the result that the marine services charges could not be offset against Potts’ paragraph 6(a) and (b) payments.3 Potts, of course, contends that the marine services charges, like the throughput charges, were to be offset against its paragraph 6(a) and (b) payments. Thus, states Potts, for every month from May, 1981 onward, Potts was obligated to pay only the paragraph 6(b) monthly payment unless the charges for throughput services and/or marine services were high enough for a particular month to obligate Potts to make an additional payment for that month pursuant to paragraph 6(d). In our prior Opinion, at 42 B.R. 715-17, we discussed in some detail McCor-mack’s invoices to Potts and Potts’ payments to McCormack through September 8, 1981, when McCormack terminated the Agreement for Potts’ alleged default thereunder. For present purposes, it is necessary only to note that Potts was clearly not in default under its interpretation of its payment obligations, but arguably was in default under McCormack’s interpretation.

The District Court held that New Jersey law governs all substantive matters in this proceeding, including, of course, the subject contract interpretation issue. Under New Jersey law, the polestar of construction of a contract is to discover the intention of the parties. Atlantic Northern Airlines, Inc. v. Schwimmer, 12 N.J. 293, 96 A.2d 652 (1953);

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Bluebook (online)
70 B.R. 894, 1987 Bankr. LEXIS 351, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mccormack-terminal-co-v-fa-potts-co-in-re-fa-potts-co-paeb-1987.