United States v. John P. Bertie, as Trustee

The United States, for its agency the Small Business Administration, brought suit in the District of Idaho to enforce the provisions of a loan guarantee agreement and to set aside as fraudulent certain conveyances of real property. The district court gave judgment for the plaintiff and the defendants appeal. We affirm.

In 1964 Bertie’s Poultry Farms, Inc., then a family-owned corporation, took a bank loan of $250,000 secured by the corporation’s assets. Its officers and shareholders and a second corporation signed an agreement of guarantee for the full amount of the loan. The note and the agreement were subsequently assigned to the SBA. The guarantors were John and Luella Bertie (husband and wife), Cecelia Bertie, and Apple Valley Farms, Inc. All were named as defendants below.

The original corporate debtor, Bertie’s Poultry Farms, Inc., transferred its assets and liabilities to Northwestern Poultry Growers, Inc. Northwestern defaulted on the loan in November 1971. By 1972 the principal indebtedness was $170,000, plus additional sums for accrued interest.

Northwestern Poultry filed a bankruptcy petition. The court-appointed trustee conducted a sale of the corporation’s…