Tow v. Amegy Bank N.A.

505 B.R. 455, 2014 WL 357741, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12063
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Texas
DecidedJanuary 31, 2014
DocketCivil Action No. H-11-3700
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 505 B.R. 455 (Tow v. Amegy Bank N.A.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tow v. Amegy Bank N.A., 505 B.R. 455, 2014 WL 357741, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12063 (S.D. Tex. 2014).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND OPINION

LEE H. ROSENTHAL, District Judge.

This Memorandum and Opinion addresses motions for summary judgment on claims the bankruptcy trustee, Rodney Tow, asserted against defendants John Speer and Michael Manners and companies they owned or controlled. Manners founded Royce Homes, L.P., and was a 50% owner of the company between 1998 and 2006. Speer, through companies he controlled, owned the other 50% until 2006, when he bought out Manners’s interest for over $30 million. Speer funded the purchase through a $20 million personal loan from Amegy Bank (the “Amegy Loan”) and a $13 million promissory note to Manners (the “Manners Note”). Royce Homes distributed money to Speer that Speer used for the payments on the Amegy Loan and the Manners Note. After Speer bought out Manners’s interest and Manners became Chairman Emeritus, Royce Homes paid him a salary and sponsored his racing team, MGM Motorsports.

Speer discontinued Royce Homes’s operations in August 2008. In April 2009, four of Royce Homes’s creditors initiated Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy proceedings against the company. In October 2011, Tow sued Speer, Manners, Amegy Bank and Amegy Mortgage Company (together, “Amegy”), and other defendants. Tow alleged that the distributions from Royce Homes to Speer and payments from Royce Homes to Manners and MGM Motorsports were fraudulent transfers under the Texas and Delaware Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Acts (“TUFTA” and “DUFTA”) and the federal fraudulent transfer statute, 11 U.S.C. § 548. Tow asserted claims against Speer and Manners for breaching fiduciary duties owed to Royce Homes. This court previously granted summary judgment dismissing the fiduciary-duty claims against Manners. (Docket Entry No. 215).

The pending motions, and the court’s rulings on them, are as follows:

[459]*459• Speer and Manners moved for summary judgment that the payments Speer made to Manners on the Manners Note and the salary and sponsorship payments Royce Homes made to Manners and MGM Motorsports were not fraudulent transfers. (Docket Entry Nos. 239, 245). This motion is granted in part and denied in part.
• Speer moved for summary judgment that a $1.4 million payment on a house that he purchased from Royce Homes was not a constructive fraudulent transfer. (Docket Entry No. 245 at 12). This motion is granted.
• Speer moved for summary judgment dismissing Tow’s breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims. (Id. at 4-7). This motion is granted.
• Amegy moved for summary judgment dismissing Tow’s remaining claims concerning the purchase of a subdivision referred to as Westwood Gardens by Vestalia LLC, a company Speer formed. (Docket Entry No. 232). Amegy also moved for summary judgment on Tow’s fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, theft, and conversion claims that are unrelated to Vestalia. (Docket Entry No. 233). Tow moved for summary judgment that Speer was acting as Amegy’s agent when he took distributions from Royce Homes to make payments on the Amegy Loan and the Manners Note. (Docket Entry No. 236). These motions are denied as moot in light of the settlement between Amegy and Tow, (Docket Entry No. 279), and the subsequent dismissal of those claims, (Docket Entry No. 282).

The reasons for these rulings are explained in detail below.

I. Background

The relevant background is set out in detail in the earlier opinions and only briefly summarized here. Royce Homes was a Delaware limited partnership that built and sold single-family homes in the Houston area until August 2008. Manners founded Royce Homes and was the company’s chief executive officer until July 1998, when he sold 50% of Royce Homes’s equity to Speer and became a limited partner.

In 1998, the parties entered into an Amended and Restated Agreement of Limited Partnership (the “1998 Agreement”). The 1998 Agreement made Ham-mersmith Group LLC Royce Homes’s general partner. Hammersmith had a 1% interest in the partnership. Speer was Hammersmith’s president. (Third-Amended Complaint (“TAC”) Docket Entry No. 77 at ¶ 61). Speer, as chief executive officer of First Duval Group, Inc., was Royce Homes’s limited partner with a 49% interest. Manners, through Royce Homes, Inc., retained a 50 % limited partnership interest. Speer, the president, sole director, and sole owner of Hammersmith, exercised Hammersmith’s authority as general partner. (TAC at ¶ 31).

In spring 2006, Manners and Speer entered into negotiations for Speer to buy Manners’s remaining interest in Royce Homes. Buying out Manners’s 50% interest cost Speer “$33,342,405 plus a loan fee of $236,386.” (TAC at ¶41 n.l). Speer entered into two personal obligations to finance this purchase: the $20 million Am-egy Loan and the $13,342,405 Manners Note. (TAC at ¶40). Speer sought consent to the buyout from Royce Homes’s lenders. (Docket Entry No. 115, App. 11, Ex. I). An employee of Royce Homes represented to lenders that Speer would use distributions from Royce Homes’s yearly net income to make the payments on the Amegy Loan and Manners Note. (Docket Entry No. 268, Ex. 9). The employee further represented that the distri[460]*460butions would not cause Royce Homes’s equity to fall below $40 million and that the company would “remain very comfortably within the bank’s [lending] requirements.” (Id.). The lenders consented. (Docket Entry No. 115, App. 11, Ex. I).

A.The Amegy Loan

Speer owed the first principal payment of $10 million on the Amegy Loan on December 81, 2006. (Docket Entry No. 268, Ex. 4 at ¶8). On January 3, 2007, Royce Homes wired $10 million to Speer’s personal Amegy bank account. (Id., Ex. 4 at ¶ 9). This money came from “draws on the Royce Homes lines of credit.” (TAC at ¶ 127 (detailing which lines of credit were used)). Royce Home’s chief financial officer testified that this distribution caused Royce Homes to violate its loan covenants. (Docket Entry No. 268, Ex. 5 at 253-54).

On June 30, 2007, Speer owed another principal payment of $2.58 million. (Docket Entry No. 268, Ex. 4 at ¶ 10). Speer made this payment but Royce Homes allegedly “had to draw down on the construction loan credit facilities in order to facilitate this distribution to Speer.” (Id.). Royce Homes transferred the money to Speer, who made the payment on July 2, 2007 with a check backdated to June 29, 2007. (Id.).

The third principal payment of $2.55 million was due on September 30, 2007. (Id., Ex. 4 at ¶ 11). At Speer’s request, Amegy extended the due date to December 31, 2007. (Id.). On January 4, 2008, Royce Homes paid Speer a $2.55 million distribution. (Id.). That same day Speer wrote Amegy a $2.5 million check, dating it December 31, 2007. (Id.). Between October 2006 and July 2008, Royce Homes also paid Speer another $1.38 million, which Speer used for interest payments on the Amegy Loan. (Id., Ex. 4 at ¶ 12).

B. The Manners’s Note

Tow alleged that Speer and Manners devised a plan to pay the Manners Note through distributions from Royce Homes. Royce Homes provided the money used for the Manners Note payments. The payments were billed to Royce Homes as “management fees” for home construction and home closings. (Id., Ex. 4 at ¶ 14). Manners testified that he did not provide services for these fees.

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Bluebook (online)
505 B.R. 455, 2014 WL 357741, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12063, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tow-v-amegy-bank-na-txsd-2014.