US Bank National Ass'n v. Petro Commercial Services Inc. (In re Interstate Bakeries Corp.)

499 B.R. 376
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, W.D. Missouri
DecidedJune 17, 2013
DocketBankruptcy No. 04-45814-can; Adversary Nos. 06-04191, 09-04205
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 499 B.R. 376 (US Bank National Ass'n v. Petro Commercial Services Inc. (In re Interstate Bakeries Corp.)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, W.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
US Bank National Ass'n v. Petro Commercial Services Inc. (In re Interstate Bakeries Corp.), 499 B.R. 376 (Mo. 2013).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

CYNTHIA A. NORTON, Bankruptcy Judge.

On the 10th day of April 2013, the Court heard opening statements and took evidence on the remaining unresolved issues with respect to the claims of Plaintiff, U.S. Bank National Association, in its capacity as trustee (the “Trustee ” or “Plaintijf”)oi the IBC Creditors’ Trust (the “Trust ”) against Defendant, Premium Food Sales, [380]*380Inc. (“Premium”). Plaintiff appeared by and through its counsel, Andrew J. Nazar and Brendan L. McPherson of Polsinelli Shughart PC, and in person through W. Terrence Brown, a member of the Trust’s Trust Advisory Board. Premium appeared by and through its counsel, Jeannie M. Bobrink and James F. Freeman of Swanson Midgley, LLC and by telephone1 through Donald Couture, its principal, with Irvin Schein, Premium’s Canadian counsel. There were no other appearances.

The Court, after reviewing the Memorandum Opinion of the Honorable Jerry W. Venters, now retired, (Docket No. 97) (the “Opinion on the Trustee’s Motion”), the Memorandum Opinion of this Court (Docket No. 123) (the “Opinion on Premium’s Motion ”), Plaintiffs Trial Brief and Motion in Limine (Docket No. 113), Premium’s Suggestions in Support of Motion and suggestions in Support of Disallowance of Interest both pre-and post judgment and Extraordinary means of collection (Docket No. 124), the Order on Plaintiffs Motion to Correct Clerical Mistake, (Docket No. 125) (the “Order Correcting Clerical Mistake ”), the Stipulation regarding admissibility of certain exhibits (Docket No. 128), reviewing the Court file, hearing the statements of counsel, considering the admitted exhibits and testimony and credibility of the witnesses, and being otherwise duly advised in the premises, FINDS, ORDERS AND ADJUDGES as follows:

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

1.The procedural background with respect to the Chapter 11 filing of Interstate Bakeries Corporation and related debtors (collectively, the “Debtor” or “IBC”), the creation of the Trust, and the filing of the Trustee’s original and bifurcated adversary proceedings to recover alleged preferential transfers against various defendants is set forth in a related matter, U.S. Bank National Association v. SMF Energy Corporation (In re Interstate Bakeries Corp.), 460 B.R. 222 (8th Cir. BAP 2011) and need not be repeated here. This adversary is the last of approximately 240 avoidance actions filed in connection with the IBC case.

2. The Trustee filed its bifurcated complaint in this Adversary against six unrelated defendants on September 14, 2009. The Trustee has dismissed or taken judgment against five of the defendants, leaving only the transfers from the Debtor to Premium at issue.

3. In particular, the Trustee seeks to recover a portion of $412,240.00 in allegedly preferential transfers (the “Transfers ”) that the Debtor made to Premium in the 90 days before the Debtor’s bankruptcy petition date.

4. Following the Trustee’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Docket No. 82) and briefing on the matter, the Honorable Jerry W. Venters, now retired, entered his Opinion on the Trustee’s Motion, granting the Trustee’s Motion “in all respects.” Specifically, Judge Venters found:

The uncontroverted facts establish judgment as a matter of law that: 1) the Transfers are avoidable under 11 U.S.C. § 547(b); 2) Premium cannot shield the Transfers from avoidance under § 547(c)(1); 3) Premium’s ability to shield the Transfers from avoidance under § 547(c)(2) and (c)(4) will be determined at the trial ... and 4) any credit for new value will be calculated using the delivery dates and amounts set forth [381]*381in numbered paragraph 7 [of the Opinion],

5. Before trial, Premium moved for summary judgment with respect to its defenses. This Court denied Premium’s Motion in the Opinion on Premium’s Motion, and this matter proceeded to trial on Premium’s §§ 547(c)(2) and (c)(4) defenses. The Court’s Opinion on Premium’s Motion outlines much of the relevant and binding law with respect to Premium’s §§ 547(c)(2) and (c)(4) defenses.

6. In the Court’s Opinion on Premium’s Motion, the Court determined that, to prevail on its ordinary course of business defense under § 547(c)(2), Premium must meet all three prongs of the pre-BAPCPA version of § 547(c)(2).2 The Court determined that the Trustee had conceded that Premium established the first prong under subsection (A), i.e., that the debt was incurred in the ordinary course of Premium’s and the Debtor’s business or financial affairs.

7. The Court also granted the Plaintiffs motion for Order Correcting Clerical Mistake, which modified and corrected the chart in Paragraph 7 in the Court’s previous Opinion on Trustee’s Motion affecting the new value defense asserted by Premium.

FINDINGS OF FACT

§ 547(c)(2)(B)/Subjective Ordinary Course

8. Prior to trial, the parties agreed on a Joint Stipulation (Docket No. 128). In the Stipulation, the parties agreed on data relating to the timing of payments for both the 90-day preference period (the “Preference Period”) and the approximate nine month period of time prior to the Preference Period (the “Pre-Preference Period ”).

9. Premium’s only witness, Mr. Couture, identified and addressed briefly Premium’s various exhibits that related to Preference Period and Pre-Preference Period data, including Premium’s Exhibits A, C, and H-K. The Court admitted each of these exhibits.

10. The Trustee’s only witness, Mr. Brown, identified and addressed Preference Period and Pre-Preference Period data from his Expert Witness Report, admitted by this Court as Exhibit 1. The Court did not find that Mr. Brown was an “expert,” however, but that his testimony related to a summary of dates and calculations was helpful to the Court and therefore should be admitted in that light.

11. The Court finds that the substance of the data from the parties’ competing exhibits and the Joint Stipulation is the same. The only difference in presentation of this data was the “days to pay” or “payment gap” data. The Trustee’s presentation of this data, through its witness Mr. Brown, was calculated from the invoice date3 to the deposit date of a check by Premium. Premium, in its Exhibit C, presented a “payment gap” from the invoice due date (i.e. 15 days from the invoice/shipment date) to the check date and the deposit date.

12. Premium’s presentation and analysis of this data was based on several iterations: (i) Exhibit H — is a combination of new value and ordinary course analysis, using the Transfer (Received) Date which Premium estimated based on a two day [382]*382subtraction of the deposit date of the checks4 and mistakenly uses the wrong action date to organize its data; (ii) Exhibit I — is the same data as Exhibit H, but uses the Transfer Date (i.e.

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Bluebook (online)
499 B.R. 376, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/us-bank-national-assn-v-petro-commercial-services-inc-in-re-interstate-mowb-2013.