PA Waste Transfer, LLC v. Evans Disposal, LLC

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 31, 2020
Docket787 MDA 2019
StatusUnpublished

This text of PA Waste Transfer, LLC v. Evans Disposal, LLC (PA Waste Transfer, LLC v. Evans Disposal, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
PA Waste Transfer, LLC v. Evans Disposal, LLC, (Pa. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

J-S02001-20

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

PA WASTE TRANSFER, LLC : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : EVANS DISPOSAL, LLC, DOUGLAS : EVANS AND PATRICIA EVANS : : No. 787 MDA 2019 Appellants :

Appeal from the Order Entered April 12, 2019 In the Court of Common Pleas of Northumberland County Civil Division at No(s): CV-1845-2015

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., KING, J., and MUSMANNO, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BENDER, P.J.E.: FILED MARCH 31, 2020

Appellants, Evans Disposal, LLC, Douglas Evans, and Patricia Evans,

appeal from the trial court’s April 12, 2019 order, which granted in part

Appellee’s, PA Waste Transfer, LLC (“PA Waste”), request for a preliminary

injunction. We affirm.

PA Waste states the facts underlying this matter as follows:1 The instant action began as a complaint by [PA Waste], a Pennsylvania Limited Liability Corporation, against Evans Disposal LLC (“Evans Disposal”), Douglas Evans and Patricia Evans ____________________________________________

1 We rely on PA Waste’s statement of the case because the trial court has not provided us with a comprehensive case summary, and Appellants’ statement of the case does not include citations to the record in contravention of Pa.R.A.P. 2117(a)(4). See Pa.R.A.P. 2117(a)(4) (stating that the statement of the case shall contain “[a] closely condensed chronological statement, in narrative form, of all the facts which are necessary to be known in order to determine the points in controversy, with an appropriate reference in each instance to the place in the record where the evidence substantiating the fact relied on may be found”). J-S02001-20

(“Individual Defendants”), Appellants here. [PA Waste] filed the complaint [at] docket CV-1845-2015 with the Northumberland County Prothonotary on October 31, 2015. The Amended Complaint avers counts of breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment and piercing the corporate veil. After two rounds of Preliminary Objections and Amended Complaints, [Appellants] answered the Second Amended Complaint on May 30, 2016. The answer contained no counterclaims. Discovery then commenced.

Three weeks later, [Appellants] untimely attempted to join a different company, Disposal Management Services, Inc., a Pennsylvania Business Corporation with an address of 154 Quarry Road, Coal Township, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, to the instant action. Due to the untimely petition, the joinder motion failed and Disposal Management Services was never joined as a part[y] here.1 1Evans Disposal sued Disposal Management Services under docket CV-2016-2252 in the Court of Common Pleas of Northumberland County. That litigation remains pending.[2]

[PA Waste] deposed the [I]ndividual [D]efendants on May 30, 2017. To date, [Appellants] have not attempted to propound interrogatories, requests for production of documents, requests for admissions, requests for entry, depositions or any other discovery.

Discovery was a tortious [sic] affair, with multiple motions to compel and a vastly incomplete record being produced by [Appellants]. After several discovery[-]related orders, [the trial court] issued [its] October 4, 2017 [o]rder finding that [PA Waste] could engage in discovery against the Individual Defendants and that [PA Waste] had shown a prima facie case to pierce the Evans Disposal corporate veil.

The Complaint contained copies [of] 32 dishonored checks[,] which Evans Disposal had not redeemed. Patricia Evans admitted at deposition that many expenditures made with Evans Disposal funds were for personal purchases [for] herself and Douglas Evans, where no records exist of reimbursement to Evans Disposal, acceptance of draws from the company to the principals, ____________________________________________

2According to Appellants, Disposal Management Services is PA Waste’s “self- described sister company….” Appellants’ Brief at 10-11. Appellants claim that Evans Disposal seeks payment of $940,000.00 in damages from it. Id. at 11.

-2- J-S02001-20

or other appropriate tax treatment of these transactions valued at tens of thousands of dollars. The trial court authorized [PA Waste] to seek tax returns from all [Appellants] after motions practice.

The underlying contract required Evans Disposal, based in Bloomsburg, Scott Township, Columbia County, to dispose of all of its collected solid waste at [PA Waste’s] Coal Township, Northumberland County waste transfer station. In exchange for this exclusive arrangement, [PA Waste] provided Evans Disposal with a beneficial disposal rate. However, Evans Disposal refused to utilize [PA Waste] for much of its disposal needs after the March 11, 2013 contract was executed. [PA Waste] obtained records from two landfills, Wayne Township Landfill in McElhattan, Pennsylvania, and Lycoming County Resource Management Services in Montgomery, Pennsylvania, showing that Evans Disposal utilized both facilities for substantial waste disposal activities during the contract term, in breach of the [PA Waste] contract.

This refusal to use the transfer station was a breach of contract, which triggered an over $300,000 liquidated damages claim. Approximately $800,000 in unpaid disposal bills, as well as the $46,000 in dishonored checks not redeemed, constitute direct damages in this breach of contract matter. Interest continues to accrue at 18% per annum, at a rate of $16,000 per month. The nonpayment of tipping fees also constituted breach of the underlying contract. [PA Waste], through counsel, notified Evans Disposal of the breach, including Evans Disposal’s response to the breach notice in the Complaint.

As part of [a] sale of the May 4, 2016 substantive Evans Disposal assets to [Fought’s Disposal Service, Inc. (“Fought’s Disposal”)], Fought[’s Disposal] entered into a $1 million promissory note to the Individual Defendants, paying the Individual Defendants approximately $4,300 per month for ten years.[3] Appellants paid ____________________________________________

3We believe this may be a misstatement, as PA Waste stated in its second petition for injunction that “[o]n May 4, 2016, … Douglas and Patricia Evans … entered into a contract with Fought’s Disposal…, where [they] were to be paid payments of $4,306.92 per month over a period of thirty (30) years.” PA Waste’s Second Petition for Injunction, 1/9/19, at ¶ 1 (emphasis added). Appellants also acknowledge that Evans Disposal and Fought’s Disposal executed a promissory note for the purchase price, stating that they agreed

-3- J-S02001-20

many vendors, but paid nothing towards the [PA Waste] liability which was documented in the initial complaint filed eight months before closing. The Individual Defendants own certain real estate in Hemlock Township, Columbia County, Pennsylvania known as 17 Pony Trail Drive. Douglas Evans also owns a 1/3 interest in a property known as 522 Scott, Daytona Beach, Volusia County, Florida. The Individual Defendants have strived to relocate to Florida, and were found to have taken tangible steps to relocate to Daytona Beach. Specifically, the [Individual D]efendants purchased 1656 Lawrence Circle, Daytona Beach, Florida[,] the day the injunction now being appealed was signed by [the trial court], having executed a balloon mortgage days earlier. The Individual Defendants were served legal documents at their Lawrence Circle address shortly after the injunction hearing.

In its October 2, 2017 Order, the trial court found that [PA Waste] had proven a prima facie case to pierce the Evans Disposal corporate veil concerning both Douglas and Patricia Evans. In that Order, the trial court authorized limited discovery of personal assets of both Douglas and Patricia Evans.

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Bluebook (online)
PA Waste Transfer, LLC v. Evans Disposal, LLC, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pa-waste-transfer-llc-v-evans-disposal-llc-pasuperct-2020.