Creditor Controlled Costs, Gets Fee Award

Floor-Plan Financer Wins Against Guarantors

By Deborah Elkins
Published: August 16, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Judge Leonie Brinkema, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

Plaintiff Automotive Finance Corporation, which arranges floor-plan financing for several Northern Virginia used car dealers, wins summary judgment in an Alexandria U.S. District Court against defendant guarantors on promissory notes that funded defendant dealerships. Summary judgment will be entered in favor of plaintiff on count II in the amount of $3,156,149, and the court will [...]

Court Awards ‘Reasonable’ Fee, Not Contract Fee

By Deborah Elkins
Published: August 16, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Judge Leonie Brinkema, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

An inventory financing company that provides floor plan financing for used car dealers, and that won summary judgment against the guarantors of promissory notes for several Northern Virginia dealers, is not entitled to an attorney’s fee award of $473,422 under the promissory notes, but only is awarded a “reasonable” fee of $213,761, says an Alexandria [...]

Garnishment of Pa. Doc’s Wages Quashed

By Deborah Elkins
Published: August 4, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Judge Jackson L. Kiser, U.S. District Court - Western District

A Danville U.S. District Court grants debtor doctor’s motion to quash a garnishment summons to pay creditor Virginia hospital a Pennsylvania resident doctor’s wages paid by an Ohio company; debtor’s wages are not located in Virginia and a garnishment summons issued by this court is ineffective to garnish them. An arbitration award ordered defendant debtor, [...]

Default Judgment on $17.8M Debt

By Deborah Elkins
Published: July 20, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Judge Norman K. Moon, U.S. District Court - Western District

A Charlottesville U.S. District Court enters default judgment for plaintiff bank for a borrower’s default under the terms of three promissory notes and awards damages of at least $17.8 million, but the court withholds awarding attorney’s fees pending further briefing. The motion also sets forth a claim for reasonable attorney’s fees of $200,000. As the [...]

Promise to Forbear Not Fraud

By Deborah Elkins
Published: July 6, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Judge Robert P. Doherty Jr., Salem Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

A Salem Circuit Court sustains a creditor’s demurrer to a borrower’s counterclaim alleging the creditor committed fraud when it foreclosed on the borrower’s property after its agent allegedly assured defendants they would work with them and allow late note payments and not foreclose. This court does not normally use the word “apparently” when reciting facts. [...]

Clerk Must Accept Confession of Judgment

By Deborah Elkins
Published: June 29, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Fairfax County Circuit Court, Judge Lorraine Nordlund, Virginia Circuit Courts

The Fairfax Circuit Court grants a bank’s petition for a writ of mandamus to require the Clerk of Court to accept a confession of judgment against a commercial debtor, even though the clerk says the confession of judgment does not comply with Va. Code § 8.01-433.1 because it lacks the words “IMPORTANT NOTICE.” The clerk [...]

Confession Of Judgment With No Affidavit Set Aside

By Deborah Elkins
Published: June 2, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Fairfax County Circuit Court, Judge R. Terrence Ney, Virginia Circuit Courts

A Fairfax Circuit Court sets aside a confessed judgment against guarantors of a business loan by plaintiff bank, because an affidavit was not filed simultaneously with the confession of judgment, as explicitly required by the language of the guaranties. The issue before the court is whether the failure by the creditor’s attorney-in-fact to follow the [...]

Successive Loans Violate Payday Act

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 28, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr., Supreme Court of Virginia

A payday lender that makes another loan to a borrower immediately after she pays off the previous loan violates a statutory prohibition against refinancing, renewing or extending any payday loan; the Supreme Court of Virginia reverses a contrary trial court ruling. On a monthly basis from March 2005 through November 2007, Wilma Ruby entered into [...]

Produce Vendors Want Trust Payments

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 15, 2011
Tags: Creditor's Rights, Judge Jerome B. Friedman, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

In this suit by fresh produce vendors to collect on their accounts receivable with distributor Let-Us Produce, a Norfolk U.S. District Court denies requests for immediate distribution and construes the controlling federal statute that sets up a trust fund from the distributor’s operating account, and orders the vendors to submit updated claims. It is undisputed [...]