United States First Circuit

In plaintiff's suit for an accounting of foreclosure proceeds and all rents collected between 1996 and 2002, claiming that as an equal partner in the company, he was entitled to one-half of the property's equity of redemption, arising from an underlying litigation, bankruptcy proceedings, and defendants' settlement with the FDIC, the judgment of the district court is affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated and remanded where: 1) the district court erred as a matter of law in invoking the doctrine of judicial estoppel to limit the defendants' proof as to the amount owed on the notes, and as such, the judgment is vacated for the district court to determine the actual amount due on the notes at the relevant time and rework the accounting; 2) district court committed legal error in judicially estopping the defendants, based on third party's earlier representation, from attempting to prove that the amount due on the notes was more than $1,853,282; 3) district court neither erred nor abused its discretion in refusing to subtract the $5,000,000 payment before calculating the equity of redemption; and 4) defendants have not identified any evidence which, had they been joined earlier, they could have introduced, nor have they made other showing of actual prejudice.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/01/2010
• Published 10/01/2010

Judges

• SELYA

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Michael S. Gardener, Matthew H. Feinberg