Experience Tishler & Wald
Tishler & Wald · LitigationOne court process for more than 100 competing claims.
When an equipment lessee went bankrupt, more than 100 lenders and leasing companies claimed what it left behind. For our creditor client, I co-designed and ran a claims process in state court, outside the bankruptcy, and drafted the central trial-court motion against a $17.49 million competing claim.
The court granted summary judgment against this claim in March 2012. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed in September 2013.
Many creditors. One pile of equipment.
Equipment Acquisition Resources leased equipment from more than 100 lenders and leasing companies. In October 2009 it filed for bankruptcy, and in December it abandoned the equipment. That left a large stock of equipment and a long list of parties who each believed some or all of it was theirs.
Our client claimed a security interest in all of the company's assets. Other lenders and lessors asserted their own rights to particular equipment. Sorting that out item by item, party by party, was going to take a process of its own.
Bring the disputes into one court, sell the equipment, and let every claim follow it into the proceeds.
The equipment lessee files for bankruptcy. In December it abandons its equipment.
Our client's case begins in the chancery division of the Cook County Circuit Court, with a complaint I drafted. More than 100 lenders and lessors are named as defendants.
The court authorizes an auctioneer to sell the equipment. Every party keeps its claims, which now attach to the sale proceeds.
In a separate federal appeal, a court affirms approval of a bankruptcy settlement.
The trial court grants summary judgment against the $17,487,520.30 competing claim.
The Illinois Appellate Court affirms.
The Illinois Supreme Court declines to hear a further appeal.
The chancery case gave the dispute one home. Instead of fighting over each machine in a different forum, the parties' claims moved with the equipment into a single pool of auction money, and the court decided who was entitled to what.
Running it meant years of coordination. I helped turn an unusual procedural setting into working records, court filings and a sequence of steps the court and the parties could follow. Professional auctioneers handled the physical inventory and the auction, and other staff mapped the equipment.
I kept a moving process usable for years.
I did this as part of the firm's team for the client. My share of the work:
Started it
Drafted the complaint that began the chancery case and coordinated service on the parties.
Kept the record straight
Built and reconciled the working asset and claim records as they changed, and compared competing claims to the same equipment.
Worked with the other side
Served as a contact for claimants' lawyers and worked with the team through individual court-approved settlements.
Wrote for the court
Prepared court reports, hearing materials and substantive trial filings, including the central motion against the $17.49 million competing claim.
The debt had already been satisfied. Our motion showed why.
One competing creditor claimed $17,487,520.30 of the auction proceeds. That creditor held mortgages on real estate securing guaranties of the same lease debt. It foreclosed on the real estate and bought it with a credit bid for the full amount owed.
I drafted the central motion in the trial court. It argued that the full credit bid satisfied the debt, so nothing was left to claim against the proceeds. The court granted summary judgment for our client in March 2012. Reading the mortgage, guaranty and lease terms under Wyoming law, the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed in September 2013.
The figure is the amount of the claim we defeated, not money recovered. Separately, as I remember it, the process turned abandoned equipment into real value for our client at a time when expectations were low.
The court record.
The court records establish the case facts and dates. My role is described from my own account of the work.
- State appeal
- 2013 IL App (1st) 120885, decided September 16, 2013. ¶ 8: the claim. ¶¶ 24 to 28: the Wyoming-law analysis. ¶¶ 31 and 32: affirmed. Official opinion (PDF)
- Federal appeal
- No. 11 C 6249 (N.D. Ill.), Document 26, December 19, 2011. Reviewed approval of a bankruptcy settlement and affirmed it; it did not decide every creditor's rights to the assets. Official opinion (PDF)
- Further review
- Illinois Supreme Court disposition listing, January 29, 2014, page 16, No. 116793: leave to appeal denied in appellate case 1-12-0885. Official listing (PDF)