Turner Grain two, Brinkley farmer set to settle grain case

All sides in a lawsuit involving Dale Bartlett, a co-owner of bankrupt Turner Grain Merchandising in Brinkley, have agreed to settle, according to a motion filed Friday in the Helena-West Helena division of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Brinkley farmer Keith Wilkison first sued Bartlett and Jason Coleman, another Turner Grain official, in Monroe County Circuit Court, in a dispute over some $200,000 in crop proceeds from a 2013-14 partnership involving all three men. Not long after, AgHeritage Farm Credit Services, a farm lender, intervened, claiming Coleman owed $100,000 for a loan that was secured by any crops grown by Coleman in the state. Bartlett has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.

Wilkison's lawsuit had been set for trial Nov. 28 in Monroe County.

On Friday, Harry Hurst Jr., of Jonesboro, the attorney for Bartlett's bankruptcy trustee, said all sides had agreed to a settlement because it was a way for all three sides to come out with a share of the money while avoiding the risk of losing in court and incurring substantial legal fees.

Hurst's proposal, which will go before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Phyllis Jones, would mete out $80,000 to AgHeritage, $40,000 to Bartlett's Chapter 7 estate, and $60,132 to Wilkison. The sides agreed to the compromise after a court-ordered mediation session Tuesday, Hurst wrote.

Any objections must be filed with the bankruptcy court within 21 days.

Meanwhile, six lawsuits filed this week in Jones' court in Helena-West Helena seek the return of $418,564 that officials at Turner Grain Merchandising paid to customers in the 90 days prior to filing for bankruptcy.

Federal bankruptcy law says payments made within 90 days of a company's filing for bankruptcy are "preference transfers" and subject to lawsuits seeking their return. Any money recovered will go into the Turner estate for the benefit of all Turner's creditors.

The tally now is at 44 lawsuits seeking repayment of $110.3 million. Most of that total -- $98.2 million -- is being sought from Turner-related companies: Ivory Rice, Agribusiness Properties, Turner Commodities and Brinkley Truck Brokerage. Filed by Randy Rice, the Little Rock attorney for the court-appointed trustee in the case, the lawsuits don't indicate whether those companies have any assets. The balance -- about $12 million -- primarily is from payments Turner made to farmers for their grain.

Creditors, including many of those now being sued by the trustee, have filed at least $39.7 million in claims for grain that Turner received but never paid for. Inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture shut down the Brinkley company in August 2014 when they found no grain in storage bins that had been certified as being full.

Turner Grain Merchandising Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2014 and converted it to Chapter 7 some months later, listing assets of $13.8 million and liabilities of $24.8 million.

The lawsuits filed this week seeking the return of Turner payments include: $347,516, LTD Farms Partnership, Terry and Lori Dabbs, Stuttgart; $11,645, Terry Dover, a wheat farmer, Palestine (St. Francis County); $11,336, Frances England, Fairport, N.Y.; $11,336, Caroline B. Lyle Trust, Clarendon; $25,472, Mike Fowler Farms, Moro (Lee County); and $11,259, Watson Farms Inc., Augusta (Woodruff County).

Business on 10/22/2016

Upcoming Events