Wiscovitch-Rentas v. PDCM Associates, S.E. (PMC Marketing Corp.)

518 B.R. 150
CourtBankruptcy Appellate Panel of the First Circuit
DecidedSeptember 30, 2014
DocketBAP No. PR 14-019; Bankruptcy No. 09-02048-BKT; Adversary No. 12-00086-BKT
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 518 B.R. 150 (Wiscovitch-Rentas v. PDCM Associates, S.E. (PMC Marketing Corp.)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wiscovitch-Rentas v. PDCM Associates, S.E. (PMC Marketing Corp.), 518 B.R. 150 (bap1 2014).

Opinion

HOFFMAN, Bankruptcy Judge.

Noreen Wiscovitch-Rentas, the chapter 7 trustee, appeals from a bankruptcy court order granting summary judgment (the “Order”) in favor of the defendant-appel-lee, PDCM Associates, S.E. (“PDCM”), on her preference complaint. For the reasons discussed below, we REVERSE the Order, VACATE the judgment, and REMAND to the bankruptcy court for further proceedings, consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND

On March 18, 2009, the debtor, PMC Marketing Corp. (the “Debtor”), filed a petition for relief under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code.1 On the petition date the Debtor operated a chain of pharmacies leasing stores in shopping centers including three owned by PDCM at the Corozal Plaza Shopping Center, in Corozal, Puerto Rico, the Victory Shopping Center in Bay-amón, Puerto Rico, and the Rio Grande Plaza in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.

In May 2010, the bankruptcy court converted the Debtor’s chapter 11 case to chapter 7 and Ms. Wiscovitch-Rentas was appointed as the chapter 7 trustee. In March 2012, the trustee filed a single-count complaint against PDCM pursuant to § 547, seeking to avoid as preferential transfers certain payments from the Debt- or to PDCM totaling $99,061.78.

Included in the trustee’s claim were two payments made by the Debtor for rent on its Corozal store. The payments were by check, each in the amount of $15,128.99. Each check covered one month’s rent.2 [152]*152The Debtor issued the first cheek on October 31, 2008, and the second on November 28, 2008. PDCM cashed both checks on February 3, 2009.

After answering the complaint, PDCM filed a motion for summary judgment. In its accompanying memorandum of law, PDCM explained that the challenged transfers were all lease payments which the Debtor had made in connection with its store leases at the Corozal, Victory and Rio Grande shopping centers. PDCM argued that the lease payments in connection with the Victory and Rio Grande leases were not preferences because those leases had been assumed by the Debtor in the chapter 11 case pursuant to § 365 which required all pre- and post-petition rent arrearages to be paid in full. As for the two $15,128.99 lease payments for the Co-rozal store, PDCM argued that the trustee could not recover those payments as preferences because the Debtor’s continued post-petition occupancy of the Corozal store constituted “new value” within the meaning of § 547(c)(4), the Debtor’s receipt of which relieved PDCM of the obligation to return the otherwise avoidable transfers.

The trustee opposed PDCM’s motion and filed a cross-motion for summary judgment. In her opposition, she conceded that any lease payments made by the Debtor on account of the Victory and Rio Grande leases were not recoverable, as the Debtor had assumed those leases. In her cross-motion for summary judgment, the trustee asserted that the challenged Corozal rent payments satisfied all of the requirements for a preferential transfer under § 547.3 With respect to the two payments made in connection with the Co-rozal store, she argued that the § 547(c)(4) new value defense was unavailable to PDCM because for the defense to apply, the creditor must have provided the alleged new value prior to the filing of the bankruptcy petition and the new value must not have been repaid with an “otherwise unavoidable transfer.” The trustee maintained that: (1) PDCM supplied new value “mostly post-petition;” and (2) the Debtor paid for any new value conferred by PDCM post-petition with “otherwise unavoidable transfers,” namely, twelve post-petition rent payments totaling $150,539.49. Alternatively, she asserted that if PDCM could be said to have given new value, it had not given sufficient new value to offset those payments in full. Rather, she claimed, PDCM was entitled to a partial offset of $21,855.22, and that she should recover at least $8,372.75, representing the difference between the voidable preferential transfers and the new value conferred by PDCM.4

The bankruptcy court granted PDCM’s motion for summary judgment, without a hearing, on December 23, 2013. In its Opinion and Order the court stated:

The motion for summary judgment before this Court presents us with the question: Can the continued use of a real property after the lessee fails to comply with his payment obligation be understood to be “new value” under ... § 547(c)(4)? This Court finds that Southern Technical College, Inc. v. Hood, 89 F.3d 1381 (8th Cir.1996) is persuasive. There, the debtor, a college [153]*153institution, failed to timely make its payments for the lease of nonresidential real property. Said payments were made one month later. After it sought bankruptcy relief, the debtor college filed a complaint to seek out the avoidance of the late payments made to the lessor during the preferential period. The court granted summary judgment to the defendant, holding that, even though the payments sought to avoid [sic] were indeed preferential transfers, the debtor had received subsequent new value for the payments for which avoidance was sought. The District Court affirmed the bankruptcy court and the issue was further appealed to the Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. The Court of Appeals determined that a lessee receives new value from its lessor when it continues to use and occupy the rented property. The subsequent late payment of the rent owed will not be avoidable, even when it is a preferential transfer, if the continued use occurred before the filing for bankruptcy relief and after the preferential transfer.
The factual similarity between Hood and the case at bar enables this Court to apply the same legal analysis that was employed there. In the instant case, the Debtor received two months of continued use, in essence rent free, of the leased property even when it failed to pay the required rent and maintenance fees. Afterwards, but still pre-petition, the Debtor tardily paid the rent and maintenance owed to the lessor. The Trustee’s avoidance action ensued. Being as there is no trial-worthy issue of law, this Court determines that the transfers made as late payment of rent and maintenance fees by the Debtor, where it remained in continued use of the property, are unavoidable transfers even though they were made during the preferential period. The Debtor received subsequent new value as defined in [§] 547(c)(4), consisting of the continued use of the nonresidential real property. This, in turn, benefit[t]ed the Debtor by allowing it to continue its business operations in the property.

On the same date, the bankruptcy court entered judgment in favor of PDCM and dismissed the trustee’s complaint with prejudice.5

One week later, the trustee filed a motion for reconsideration, asserting that the bankruptcy court erred in failing to acknowledge that: (1) the alleged new value provided by PDCM did not exceed $21,855.22; and (2) the alleged new value was wholly repaid by otherwise unavoidable transfers totaling $150,589.49. The trustee also urged the bankruptcy court to “take into account that the December 23, 2013 Opinion and Order [wa]s in direct opposition to a previous Opinion and Order entered in a related, but nearly identical case. See PMC v. BPP Retail Properties, LLC, Case No. 12-0093, Dkt. No. 47.”6

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Bluebook (online)
518 B.R. 150, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wiscovitch-rentas-v-pdcm-associates-se-pmc-marketing-corp-bap1-2014.