Williams v. Federal Deposit Insurance (In Re Positive Health Management)

769 F.3d 899, 2014 WL 5293705
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedOctober 16, 2014
Docket12-20687
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 769 F.3d 899 (Williams v. Federal Deposit Insurance (In Re Positive Health Management)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Federal Deposit Insurance (In Re Positive Health Management), 769 F.3d 899, 2014 WL 5293705 (5th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

GREGG COSTA, Circuit Judge:

The Bankruptcy Code allows a trustee to recover fraudulent transfers made by the debtor prior to bankruptcy. 11 U.S.C. § 548(a). An innocent recipient of such a fraudulent transfer is not without a defense, however. The Code allows a transferee that takes in good faith to retain what it received from the debtor in a fraudulent transfer “to the extent that such transferee ... gave value to the debt- or in exchange for such transfer.” 11 U.S.C. § 548(c). This appeal from a bankruptcy court decision that allowed the innocent recipient of fraudulent transfers to retain all the funds it received under the .affirmative defense in section 548(c) turns on the meaning of “value” in this statute. We have already held that this value must be assessed from the perspective of what the transferee gave up rather than what the debtor received. Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Hayes (In re Hannover Corp.), 310 F.3d 796, 799-802 (5th Cir.2002). The unresolved question we must now decide is what happens when a transferee gave less value to the debtor than it received. Is the transferee allowed to keep all that it received so long as it gave “reasonably equivalent” value in exchange? Or is netting required so that the transferee keeps only the value that it gave to the Debtor?

I.

Ronald T. Ziegler was the president and sole shareholder of Positive Health Man *902 agement, Inc., which operated pain management clinics in Texas. In 2005, First National Bank made a refinance loan to a separate corporate entity owned by Ziegler. The loan was secured by a building in Garland, Texas, which Positive Health used for office space from September 2006 to March 2008. Despite having no direct obligations under the loan, Positive Health made a series of payments to First National totaling $867,681.35. The payments, which began in February 2007 and ended in March 2008, were listed on Positive Health’s tax returns as rent. When the payments stopped, First National foreclosed on the Garland property.

After Positive Health filed a bankruptcy petition, trustee Randy Williams brought an adversary proceeding to recover the payments to First National as fraudulent transfers under 11 U.S.C. § 548. The bankruptcy court conducted a three-day trial on the claim, after which it submitted Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.

The bankruptcy court first addressed whether Williams could prove a constructive fraudulent transfer, which requires that the debtor “received less than a reasonably equivalent value in exchange for such transfer or obligation.” 11 U.S.C. § 548(a)(1)(B). The court found that Positive Health received at least reasonably equivalent value for the $867,681.35 in transfers to First.National on two alternative grounds. First, the court cited First National’s forbearance from foreclosing on the Garland property, which allowed Positive Health to continue “running its operations and generating cash flow in the millions.” Second, the court cited the “reasonable rent” for the office space that the payments enabled Positive Health to continuing using, which the court determined was $253,333.33 based on an appraisal conducted in 2006. Because Positive Health received value at least “reasonably equivalent” to the amount of the transfers, the court held that Williams could not prevail on the constructive fraudulent transfer claim. .

Nonetheless, for reasons not seriously challenged in this appeal, 1 the bankruptcy court concluded that Positive Health made the transfers “with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud,” and therefore that Williams had established actual fraud. 11 U.S.C. § 548(a)(1)(A). The court made this finding pursuant to the multifactor test identified in Soza v. Hill (In re Soza), 542 F.3d 1060, 1067 (5th Cir.2008), and noted Positive Health’s deteriorating financial condition and the fact that it faced lawsuits and judgments around the time of the transfers.

The bankruptcy court then analyzed whether First National could establish the affirmative defense that it took the payments in good faith and gave value in return. 11 U.S.C. § 548(c). Relying on its discussion of “reasónably equivalent value” under the constructive fraudulent transfer analysis, the court determined that First National “gave value in exchange for the transfers” and acted in good faith. It therefore found that First *903 National was entitled to the defense and could keep the funds.

After the district court adopted the bankruptcy court’s proposed order, Williams filed a motion to amend the judgment, arguing that the affirmative defense had not been adequately pleaded and that the testimony concerning the market value of the rent was unreliable. The district court referred the motion back to the bankruptcy court, which held an additional hearing on First National’s section 548(c) affirmative defense. At the hearing, Williams called his own expert witness, who testified that the testimony of First National’s witness was not reliable for the purposes of determining rent in 2007 and 2008. The bankruptcy court noted in response that Williams “offered no evidence on the rental value of the Garland Property,” so its initial finding of market rent was uncontroverted. The district court again adopted the bankruptcy court’s recommendation, noting that First National “ ‘gave value’ to the debtor beyond the rental value of the property.” This appeal followed. 2

II.

“In reviewing the rulings of the bankruptcy court on direct appeal and the district court sitting in bankruptcy, we review findings of fact for clear error and conclusions of law de novo. We review mixed questions of law and fact de novo.” TMT Procurement Corp. v. Vantage Drilling Co. (In re TMT Procurement Corp.), 764 F.3d 512, 519 (5th Cir.2014) (per curiam) (internal citations omitted); see also Hannover, 310 F.3d at 799-800. A bankruptcy court’s valuation “is largely a question of fact, as to which considerable latitude must be allowed to the trier of the facts.” Hannover, 310 F.3d at 801 (internal quotation marks omitted). However, “we review de novo the methodology employed by the bankruptcy court in assigning values to the property transferred and the consideration received.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

III.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
769 F.3d 899, 2014 WL 5293705, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-federal-deposit-insurance-in-re-positive-health-management-ca5-2014.