Pretrial motions will continue today in Lonoke County Circuit Court, minus one person and six entities that were defendants in the original lawsuit filed by rice farmers who were owed money in the August 2014 collapse of Turner Grain Merchandising Inc.
Circuit Judge Sandy Huckabee late Tuesday afternoon dismissed Neauman Coleman as a defendant in the lawsuit, which is scheduled for 18 days of trial. Any motions not dealt with today will be heard Monday. Jury selection is set for Tuesday.
Shortly after the judge ruled in his favor, Coleman said he'd like the media to stop using stock pictures of a modest brick office building in Brinkley in news stories about the bankrupt firm. "My name's on that place," said Coleman, a commodity futures broker for 42 years.
Coleman now lives in Mountain Home, where he continues to work as a futures broker.
Coleman rented the small brick building at 411 Main St. in Brinkley for several years and placed a sign out front advertising his brokerage firm: Neauman Coleman and Co.
He was among five individuals and 15 entities sued in August 2014 by a group of Lonoke County rice farmers who were never paid some $6 million for 820,000 bushels of grain.
Coleman's attorney, Todd Williams of Jonesboro, argued Tuesday that Coleman didn't sell or buy grain and tried only to help farmers in the final days of Turner Grain. "No good deed goes unpunished," Williams said, referring to Coleman being sued and having to hire lawyers to defend himself.
Earlier Tuesday, Kendel Grooms, a Little Rock lawyer for the Lonoke County rice farmers, said he would request that six other entities be dropped from the lawsuit: Coleman Duck Club, Coleman Transportation, Rice America, Rice Arkansas, NEA Truck Brokerage, and Neauman Coleman and Co.
Coleman has said in depositions that Coleman Duck Club and Coleman Transportation were started by his late brother and had nothing to do with Turner Grain's business. He said Rice America and Rice Arkansas were domain names that he registered with the secretary of state's office and never did any business under those names.
In 2002, Coleman's nephew Jason Coleman and Dale Bartlett formed Turner Grain Merchandising Inc. to buy and sell grain. After running the business out of their homes for a while, Jason Coleman and Bartlett moved their operations into the building rented by Neauman Coleman. Bartlett was Turner's president, and Jason Coleman was its vice president. Neauman Coleman said he wasn't an officer or investor in Turner Grain.
In 2004, Neauman Coleman said, he became aware of a piece of property that, because of a railway spur, would be a good place to buy and build grain bins to store and dry rice. The three went into business together, each owning a third of Agribusiness Properties, a grain elevator, and Ivory Rice, its marketing arm. But Neauman Coleman said he had nothing to do with Turner Grain's day-to-day business and had no contact with farmers.
Agribusiness Properties and Ivory Rice will remain as defendants in the lawsuit, Huckabee ruled Tuesday.
Turner Grain was closed in August 2014 after inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture found no grain in bins, contrary to certifications by Turner stating otherwise. The visit came just days after talk circulated through the small farming community that Turner Grain checks written to several farmers were being returned by the bank for insufficient funds.
Within two months of its closing, Turner Grain Merchandising Inc. had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (later converted to Chapter 7), initially listing $23.8 million in debts and $13.8 million in assets. The debts later were amended to nearly $47 million.
In a deposition March 22, Neauman Coleman said he heard "scuttlebutt in the office" about checks to farmers bouncing in Turner Grain's final days. He said it was the first indication he'd gotten that the company was in trouble. Jason Coleman and Bartlett were rarely in the office by then, he said.
Farmers stopped by the office, demanding money. "The dominant question was, 'When am I going to get paid?"' Neauman Coleman said in the deposition.
Three farmers demanded that he take them to the bank. "And the result of that thing is that I was taken by those big dudes, [they] said, 'OK, we're going to the bank. We're going in your car, and you're driving us to the bank.' So I drove those big dudes in my car to the Marvell branch of Helena National Bank."
There, the farmers met with a bank vice president and asked about Turner's finances, Neauman Coleman said. The banker pointed to a stack of checks, totaling $1.3 million, that had bounced that morning, Neauman Coleman said.
Turner Grain Merchandising Inc. itself isn't a defendant in the Lonoke County case because it is under federal bankruptcy protection.
The other defendants in the case are Jason Coleman, Bartlett, and KBX Inc., a Benton grain dealer that did extensive business with Turner Grain, including $104 million in payments to Turner Grain for rice from Oct. 14, 2013, to Aug. 11, 2014, about four days before Turner was shut down.
Gerald Loyd of Dumas, a grain broker and president of Turner Commodities Inc., and Christopher Taylor, a former broker for Turner who now lives in Des Arc, also are defendants. Loyd and Taylor have motions similar to Neauman Coleman's in asking for summary judgment and dismissal as defendants in the case.
The lawsuit contends that KBX was the buyer of the rice, that Turner Grain was a broker and that KBX officials knew of Turner Grain's problems but didn't warn farmers.
KBX has said it had no direct contacts with the rice farmers and wasn't in arrears in payments to Turner, aside from a dispute over some $850,000 that has since been settled in federal bankruptcy court, where Turner Grain Merchandising Inc.'s case still resides.
Business on 05/04/2017