Opinion
No. 16-12079
01-30-2017
LARRY BRUCE THACKER, Debtor. LARRY BRUCE THACKER, CARLOTTA APPLEMAN THACKER, as Trustees of the Thacker Family Revocable Living Trust, Plaintiffs - Appellants, v. JOHN E. VENN, JR., Defendant - Appellee.
[DO NOT PUBLISH] D.C. Docket Nos. 5:15-cv-00062-RH-GRJ; 12-bkc-50370-KKS Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida Before WILSON and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges, and HALL, District Judge. PER CURIAM:
Honorable James Randal Hall, United States District Judge, for the Southern District of Georgia, sitting by designation. --------
Appellants Larry and Carlotta Thacker appeal the district court's affirmance of the bankruptcy court's grant of summary judgment for the appellee, bankruptcy trustee John Venn Jr., based on collateral estoppel. After careful review of the record and the parties' briefs, and with the benefit of oral argument, we find no merit to Thacker's claims and affirm.
We review a bankruptcy court's grant of summary judgment de novo. In re Optical Techs, Inc., 246 F.3d 1332, 1335 (11th Cir. 2001). This litigation originated over seven years ago, in 2009. Since then, Thacker has argued several times that his transfers of property into a trust were not fraudulent. But several courts have found otherwise and have affirmed the Florida state court's findings of multiple badges of fraud stemming from Thacker's transfers.
The bankruptcy court properly gave collateral estoppel effect to the Florida state court judgment that found Thacker's transfers of property to be fraudulent. In summarizing it's decision to affirm the application of collateral estoppel, the district court recalled that "[t]he state court avoided []Thacker's fraudulent transfers . . . [and that] ruling was correct. Even more clearly, [that] ruling was and is binding." Thacker v. Venn, No. 5:15-cv-62-RH/GRJ, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43450, at *12 (N.D. Fla. Mar. 31, 2016). After de novo review, we agree with the thorough and well-reasoned decision of the courts below.
AFFIRMED.