Franke, Schultz & Mullen, PC | <span >U.S. District Court Awards Judgment in Favor of FSM Client in Excess of $4M</span >
Kansas City - Springfield - St. Louis - Overland Park
This links to the home page
News & Publications

U.S. District Court Awards Judgment in Favor of FSM Client in Excess of $4M

02/09/2015
KC Ravens is an investment enterprise located in Kansas City.  KC Ravens was approached by Global Earth Natural Resources (GENR) about providing a $1M bridge loan to finalize a $100M bond issuance for GENR.  GENR is a Canadian company that was publicly traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.  The bond issuance was being underwritten by Micah Energy Corporation (Micah)  of Gilbert, Arizona.  The bond issuance was for the acquisition by GENR of a coal mine in eastern Kentucky.
 
The President and CEO of Micah, Mike Snell , made various representations to KC Ravens indicating that it had significant experience in bond underwriting of this sort and produced documents ostensibly from Chase Bank indicating that Micah had in excess of $500M moving through its corporate account for a one-year period prior to the issuance of the bridge loan. Additionally, Mike Snell represented that he had a doctorate in Nuclear Engineering from MIT.  The bridge loan to GENR was guaranteed by Micah.    Based upon these representations,   KC Ravens issued the bridge loan.
 
After the bridge loan was funded and the bond was not forthcoming, GENR defaulted on the bridge loan.  Thereafter, Micah defaulted on the Guarantee.  Suit was commenced by FSM in Jackson County Circuit Court, but was removed by defendant Snell to The United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.  The damages hearing was held on February 5 and the Hon. Greg Kays returned a judgment in favor of KC Ravens.  KC Ravens presented evidence showing that all of the representations made by Micah and Snell were false and that the Chase Bank document was a forgery. The court entered judgment in favor of KC Ravens and against Micah for the full amount of the guarantee of $1.5M.  On KC Ravens' fraudulent misrepresentation claim against Snell, the court returned a judgment in favor of KC Ravens with actual damages of $2.048M and punitive damages of $2M.
 
KC Ravens was represented by John L. Mullen and Nick Hillyard of Franke, Schultz and Mullen.