ML Manager, LLC v. Hawkins (In re Mortages Ltd.)

559 B.R. 508, 2016 Bankr. LEXIS 3440
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, D. Arizona
DecidedSeptember 19, 2016
DocketCase No.: 2:08-bk-07465-EPB; Adversary Number: 2:10-ap-00430-EPB (consol.with adversary number 2:10-ap-00717-EPB)
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 559 B.R. 508 (ML Manager, LLC v. Hawkins (In re Mortages Ltd.)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, D. Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
ML Manager, LLC v. Hawkins (In re Mortages Ltd.), 559 B.R. 508, 2016 Bankr. LEXIS 3440 (Ark. 2016).

Opinion

[510]*510Trial

Bankruptcy Judge: Hon. Eddward P. Ballinger, Jr.

Introduction

The issues before the Court are whether the Rev Op Group (“ROG”) defendants1 in this adversary case are bound to an irrevo-cable agency agreement with Plaintiff ML Manager, LLC (“ML Manager”) and, if bound, the extent of ML Manager’s agency authority. A trial was held over the course of four days, from June 7-10, 2016, and the parties, submitted post-trial memoranda on June 29, 2016.

Factual Background

The facts regarding this bankruptcy and adversary have been set forth on numerous occasions not only by the parties, but also in several opinions by the Ninth Cir-cuit Court of Appeals. For the sake of judicial efficiency, this Court appropriates, in part, the history of this case from those appellate decisions and the parties’ Joint Pretrial Statement.

ML Manager’s predecessor in interest, Mortgages Ltd., was a private lender fund-ing real estate investments in Arizona. Its borrowers executed promissory notes in favor of Mortgages Ltd. and provided various forms of security, including real prop-erty evidenced by deeds of trust, assign-ments of rent and, in some cases, personal guarantees. Mortgages Ltd. raised monies to fund the loans by selling interests in the loans to investors who received fractional interests in the notes and trust deeds. The parties describe these partial ownership interests generally as “pass-through” in-vestments, meaning the investors acquired a direct fractional interest in the loan doc-uments. Each direct fractional interest was also referred to as a “participation.” Un-like other investment vehicles in which investors received equity in the lender, when a Mortgages Ltd. borrower default ed and its real property collateral was foreclosed upon, those holding partic-ipations became part owners of the realty as tenants in common with the others who had invested in the same loan. Mortgages Ltd. acted as the servicing agent not only for its loans, but also for the properties acquired due to loan defaults.

Mortgages Ltd. sold its pass-through in-vestments through numerous investment programs described in general terms in a Private Offering Memorandum (“POM”). The ROG participated in a loan program called the Revolving Opportunity Loan Program (“Rev Op Program”), in which each investor agreed to purchase a frac-tional interest in a Mortgages Ltd. loan, at least temporarily. Rev Op Program inves-tors granted Mortgages Ltd. the right to repurchase the investor’s fractional inter-est at a contractually specified price at any time during the contract period. Additionally, Mortgages Ltd. was obligated to re-purchase each interest for a specified price at the end of the contract term if the [511]*511borrower had not fully repaid the loan. Rev Op Program investments typically matured in 90 to 120 days. These repur-chase rights distinguished this investment program from other programs offered by Mortgages Ltd.

In 2008, Mortgages Ltd. commenced a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding (subse-quently converted to a Chapter 11). Its confirmed bankruptcy plan provided for the creation of various limited liability companies referred to as the “Loan LLCs.” The Loan- LLCs were created to hold the Mortgages Ltd. loans and loan documents associated with each particular-loan. ML Manager was created to manage and operate the Loan LLCs. Investors were given the option of exchanging their existing participations for membership in-terests in the new Loan LLCs.

Members of the ROG elected not to transfer their participation interests to the Loan LLCs, which meant under the terms of the bankruptcy plan that they continued to hold their fractional interests according to the terms of their pre-bankruptcy in-vestment agreements:

Any Pass-Through Investor that does not transfer its fractional interests into a Loan LLC will receive its distribution pursuant to the existing Agency Agreement and other contracts which may be assigned to the ML Manager LLC. Be-fore such distributions are made, Pass-Through Investors who retain their frac-tional interests in the ML Loans shall be assessed their proportionate share of costs and expenses of serving and col-lecting the ML Loans in a fair, equitable and nondiscriminatory manner and shall be reimbursed in the same manner as the other Investors.

Amended Plan, section 4.13, docket 1532 and Order Confirming Amended Plan, section U.2., docket 1755. Further, the plan provided that, at the option of the plan proponent, the contracts between Mort-gages Ltd. and the pass-through investors who elected not to transfer their ownership interests to the Loan LLCs could be transferred and assigned to ML Manager.

Since confirmation, ML Manager has sought to sell some of the loans in its portfolio. The ROG objected to many of these sales on the ground that ML Manager could not dispose of the properties with-out the ROG’s consent. ML Manager disa-greed, asserting that the ROG was bound by the terms of various pre-bankruptcy agreements designating Mortgages Ltd. as the ROG’s agent and, in accordance with the provisions of the reorganization plan, ML Manager succeeded to Mortgages Ltdfs agency role. This dispute eventually led ML Manager to file this adversary proceeding seeking declaratory judgment as follows:

1. That the ROG members entered into and remain bound by valid agreements designating'Mortgages Ltd. as its agent;
2. That the agreements granted Mort-gages Ltd. sole authority to take specific actions with respect to the properties with or without the ROG’s consent; and
3. That the agreements, and therefore the agency authority, were properly transferred to ML Manager post-confir-mation.

The ROG counterclaimed, seeking an ac-counting from ML Manager and declarato-ry judgment that the ROG validly revoked any agency authority if such authority ever existed.

Subsequently, the ROG filed a motion for partial summary judgment on its de-claratory judgment counterclaim. Solely for purposes of the motion for summary judgment, the ROG assumed agency au-thority existed and argued it had validly revoked such authority. On May 26, 2010, the bankruptcy court denied the ROG’s [512]*512motion for summary judgment, concluding that the agency authority was coupled with an interest and irrevocable. Additionally, the court held that the agency authority was not decoupled by the assignment to ML Manager. The court indicated that whether the assignment to ML Manager was valid was an issue still to be deter-mined.

The day before the bankruptcy court issued this ruling, ML Manager filed its own motion for judgment on the pleadings on its countervailing request for declarato-ry judgment. The legal arguments present-ed overlapped, in part, with those raised in the ROG’s partial motion for summary judgment. Additionally, the motion for judgment on the pleadings raised ques-tions as to whether the agency agreements were executed, whether the agency agree-ments were incorporated by reference into other executed investor agreements, the scope of the agency agreements, and whether discretion was withheld by some investors. At the hearing on the motion, the court granted the parties time for ad-ditional briefing on whether the plausibility standard, outlined in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct.

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Bluebook (online)
559 B.R. 508, 2016 Bankr. LEXIS 3440, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ml-manager-llc-v-hawkins-in-re-mortages-ltd-arb-2016.