In this alleged fraudulent transfer case, Plaintiff Shuler Drilling Company, LLC (“Shuler”) obtained a judgment in the Western District of Arkansas against Southern Management, a company wholly owned by the Disiere Defendants. After some contentious, post-judgment discovery disputes in Arkansas, Shuler brought the present action under the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (“TUFTA”) against the Disiere Defendants alleging that two asset transfers were fraudulent. According to Shuler, these concealed transfers were made after Shuler obtained a judgment against Southern Management with funds that could and should have paid the judgment. Instead, Shuler alleged that the Disiere Defendants intended to make these transfers so that Southern Management would be unable to pay the judgment against it.
Shuler’s forensic accounting expert witness, Larry Kanter, served two expert reports in 2022 and 2024. The Disiere Defendants move to exclude all Kanter’s expert opinions in his reports, eight opinions in total, as unreliable and irrelevant.
Accounting Expert Witness
Larry Kanter is a CPA with more than 25 years of combined Big 4 and international consulting firm experience. He was a Partner at PwC, EY and was a Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal. He has served in leadership and testifying expert roles in numerous large, complex engagements involving GAAP, internal control, damage quantification and fraud/forensic investigative issues. Kanter was among the first forensic CPAs to integrate data analytic processes into his practice.
Discussion by the Court
The Disiere Defendants contended that opinion number 1 in Kanter’s 2024 expert report and opinion number six in his 2022 expert report are unreliable and irrelevant because they relied on self-created law. The Court held that these two opinions help assist the trier of fact in understanding the evidence and determining facts in issue. Specifically, they both assist the trier of fact in understanding how the general ledgers are analyzed and reconciling detailed financial statements with those ledgers, which are facts that go to ultimate issues in this case.
Moreover, the Disiere Defendants did not argue that these opinions were inaccurate. Instead, they contended that they are unreliable because Kanter sought to insert his own legal standards instead of those required by TUFTA and controlling precedent. But as Shuler aptly noted, the purpose of these opinions is not to offer legal conclusions on the elements required by TUFTA. And a plain reading of these expert opinions showed that a legal conclusion simply does not exist nor does Kanter ask the jury to disregard precedent.
The Disiere Defendants also objected that the remaining opinions in these two reports are irrelevant. But upon careful review, these opinions are entirely relevant because they assist the factfinder in determining whether the Disiere Defendants’ financial documents are misleading and contradictory. As Kanter repeatedly testified at deposition, these opinions explain how certain financial documents are misleading and cannot be reconciled with the general ledger.
The Court held that testimony regarding misleading financial records, undercapitalization of Southern Management, and contradictory statements by Disiere has the tendency to make the ultimate issue—whether the Disiere Defendants fraudulently transferred assets in order to evade Shuler’s judgment against Southern Management—more probable than it would be without this testimony.
Held
The Court denied the Disiere Defendants’ motion to exclude testimony of expert Larry Kanter.
Key Takeaway:
Expert testimony is relevant if it assists the trier of fact in understanding the evidence or determining a fact in issue. Opinion number 1 in Kanter’s 2024 expert report and opinion number six in his 2022 expert report assist the trier of fact in understanding how the general ledgers are analyzed and reconciling detailed financial statements with those ledgers. The remaining opinions are just as relevant because they assist the factfinder in determining whether the Disiere Defendants’ financial documents are misleading and contradictory.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Shuler Drilling Company Inc V. Disiere Partners Llc, Et Al |
| Docket Number: | 3:22cv2062 |
| Court: | United States District Court, Texas Northern |
| Order Date: | August 13, 2024 |
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