Scudder v. Farmers Production Credit Ass'n

521 N.E.2d 354, 1988 Ind. App. LEXIS 223, 1988 WL 30309
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 5, 1988
DocketNo. 78A01-8709-CV-229
StatusPublished

This text of 521 N.E.2d 354 (Scudder v. Farmers Production Credit Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Scudder v. Farmers Production Credit Ass'n, 521 N.E.2d 354, 1988 Ind. App. LEXIS 223, 1988 WL 30309 (Ind. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinion

ROBERTSON, Judge.

Dearold and Donna Scudder appeal a judgment rendered in favor of the plaintiff-appellee Production Credit Association (PCA). The trial court determined that payment received by the Scudders through the federal government's milk diversion program belonged to the PCA because the PCA had a properly perfected security interest in all of the Scudders' dairy cattle and the payment was a "contract right to such secured property and an account receivable from such secured property."

We reverse.

We glean the following facts from the record. The Scudders entered into agreements with the PCA in February, 1977 and May, 1979 by which PCA took a security interest in, among other things, all of the Seudders' dairy cattle. In March, 1980, PCA advanced the Scudders approximately $84,000.00 pursuant to the agreements. Sometime thereafter, the Seudders filed a petition in bankruptcy, assigned cause No. 82-2040-NA.1 Through bankruptcy proceedings, the cattle mentioned in the security agreements were returned to PCA and sold. The Scudders received a discharge 2, and resumed farming. No other security agreements or financing statements were executed or filed by PCA.

On April 5, 1985 Donna Seudder applied for participation in the U.S. Department of [356]*356Agriculture's Milk Diversion Program 3 for the period January 1, 1984 through March 31, 1985. Her application was approved on April 29, 1985. The Seudders received a payment from the federal government of $11,380.50 for their participation in the program on that day.

PCA claimed at trial that it retained a postbankruptcy security interest in the milk diversion program payment. The Seudders responded that the payment was not covered by PCA's security agreement and also argued that federal law governing the program prohibits the creation of se-eurity interests in milk diversion program payments to secure antecedent debts. The trial court entered special findings, concluding that the payment was property properly secured by the 1977 and 1979 agreements; the trial court did not address the Scudders' argument that the security agreement amounted to an assignment barred by federal law. We also will not address that argument because we find the determinative issue to be whether the milk diversion program payment received by the Seudders constituted "proceeds" of the Seudders' prebankruptcy collateral subject to PCA's security interest.

At the heart of this controversy is the description of collateral contained in PCA's financing statements/security agreements. The agreements secured an interest in "(alll dairy cattle but not limited to all dairy cattle," and

7 [alll property similar to that listed above, which at any time may hereafter be acquired by the Debtor(s) including, but not limited to, all off-spring of livestock, additions and replacements of livestock ... and all products of ... livestock ...
8 [alll proceeds of the sale or other disposition of any of the property described or referred to under Items 3 to 7, inclusive above, and of any off-spring, ... milk, ... and contract rights derived from said property, together with all accounts receivable resulting from such sales, ...

The trial court focused, as the appellant has, on categorizing the milk diversion payment by type of collateral. See IND.CODE 26-1-9-106. However, there is no need to characterize the milk diversion payment as one of the types of collateral created by the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) since whatever the nature of the property interest received by virtue of the contractual relationship between the Seud-ders and the Department of Agriculture, under the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, 11 U.S.C. § 552(a), if it was not "property of the debtor acquired before the commencement of the case," it would not be subject to a prepetition lien.

11 U.S.C. § 552(a) sets out the general rule that property acquired postpetition is not subject to a prepetition lien:

[elxcept as provided in subsection (b) ..., property acquired by the estate or by the debtor after the commencement of the case is not subject to any lien resulting from any security agreement entered into by the debtor before the commencement of the case.

This section facilitates the "fresh start" policy inherent in the bankruptcy code as a whole by cutting off security interests obtained through after-acquired property clauses, enabling the debtor to utilize property acquired postpetition. See L. King, Collier on Bankruptcy 552-1, 552-2 (15th ed. 1987); Local Loan Co. v. Hunt (1934), 292 U.S. 234, 244-245, 54 S.Ct. 695, 699, 78 L.Ed. 1230; In Re Transportation Design & Technology, Inc. (Bkrtcy.S.D.Cal.1985), 48 BR. 635, 640. As the commentators note, without this provision, few if any Chapter XI reorganizations would succeed because in most cases there are secured creditors with agreements containing after-acquired property clauses which would deprive the debtor of assets generated toward rehabilitation. See Collier on Bankruptcy, supra at 552-10.

In the present case, PCA obtained its security interest from the Scudders in 1977 or 1979. At the time the Seudders filed their bankruptcy petition in 1982, the program at issue had not yet been created by Congress. The Sceudders did not take af[357]*357firmative steps to obtain approval of their participation from the Department of Agriculture until April, 1985. Consequently, if the collateral was the contract itself or the payment generated by the contract, the Seudders could not have acquired "rights in the collateral" necessary for attachment of PCA's security interest until 1985, over two years after the petition was filed. See I.C. 26-1-9-204 (1), (2)(c), (d) (1963); Cargill, Inc. v. Perlich (1981), Ind. App., 418 N.E.2d 274, 277. To the extent, then, that the trial court found and concluded that the program payment was property secured by PCA's security agreements because it was a contract right or account receivable, the trial court's finding and judgment were clearly erroneous. See Ind.Rules of Procedure, Trial Rule 52.

Notwithstanding § 552(a), subsection (b)4 creates a narrow exception for postpetition property which can be traced to a security agreement executed before commencement of the case; that is, it creates an exception for proceeds generated by prepetition collateral, not for property acquired by the debtor postpetition or post-petition collateral proceeds. § 552(b) provides that

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521 N.E.2d 354, 1988 Ind. App. LEXIS 223, 1988 WL 30309, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/scudder-v-farmers-production-credit-assn-indctapp-1988.