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Sixteen years after Dr. Ronald Cunning obtained a multi-million dollar judgment against Lloyd Rucker, a federal court once again ruled that the victim can take steps towards collecting over $1 million that was seized from Rucker 8 years ago. This victory is just the latest hurdle of many that Dr. Cunning and his tenacious team of trial lawyers led by Thomas H. Bienert, Jr. at Bienert Katzman Littrell Williams LLP have overcome.
After being defrauded in 1994, Dr. Cunning obtained a civil judgment against Rucker for $3.2 million in 1997, located and seized over $1 million from Rucker in 2005, obtained a court order after a trial in 2006 that Dr. Cunning could collect the money, and then successfully rebuffed Rucker’s appeal of that order in 2009. In the mean time, Rucker had filed for bankruptcy in Florida in 2005, and his case was transferred to the United States Bankruptcy Court for Central District of California in 2006.
Before Dr. Cunning could finally collect the money in 2009, the trustee appointed in Rucker's bankruptcy matter filed a complaint against Dr. Cunning for the same proceeds, claiming that he did not properly serve Rucker with legal documents in 2005 to create a valid lien against Rucker's assets and, consequently, the trustee could avoid Dr. Cunning's purported lien and take the money in the estate to pay Rucker's creditors. The trustee took this position despite the fact that Dr. Cunning was by far the largest creditor in the bankruptcy, being owed 90% of the money owed by Rucker to his creditors.
The bankruptcy court held a four-day trial on the trustee's complaint in January 2013, during which time Tom served as lead trial counsel on behalf of Dr. Cunning. In April 2013, the bankruptcy court entered a judgment in favor of Dr. Cunning and against Rucker, and held that Dr. Cunning had a valid lien against Rucker's asserts that was not subject to avoidance.
Dr. Cunning expressed gratitude over the latest ruling of the court and the efforts of his trial team. Dr. Cunning noted that “throughout the years, I have been very thankful for, and appreciative of, the talent and hard work of my trial counsel. It has been a long haul for all of us,” and that he is “delighted that we have achieved some measure of justice.”
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