No malicious intent found in prosecution of debt suit

The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for a heavy equipment company when it found there was no malicious prosecution of an Indiana quarry and its owner over a debt. 

In 2009, Diamond Equipment Inc. sued Ingram Quarry in Marion County to recover an unpaid balance for heavy equipment it sold to Ingram Enterprises in 2005, before Ingram Quarry assumed its debt. Both Diamond and Ingram Quarry filed motions for summary judgment, and at the same time, Benjamin Ingram formed Ben’s Quarry and purchased certain assets from Ingram Quarry for approximately $1.4 million. The purchased assets did not include the construction equipment sold by Diamond.

A trial court ultimately granted summary judgment in favor of Diamond, which filed a further complaint seeking assets ‘fraudulently transferred’ to Ingram and Ben’s Quarry while Diamond’s motion was still pending. In 2015, a trial court ruled for Ingram and Ben’s Quarry on all counts, who then filed an additional complaint alleging Diamond acted with malice and had no probable cause to hold Ingram and Ben’s Quarry personally liable.

The Vanderburgh Superior Court granted Diamond’s motion for summary judgment on that complaint, finding as a matter of law that Ingram and Ben’s Quarry could not prove their malicious prosecution claim because Diamond “had probable cause in initiating the underlying lawsuit against [them]” and did not act maliciously in doing so.

On appeal, the appellants argued that the findings of probable cause and lack of malice as a matter of law were fact-sensitive inquiries and inappropriate for resolution on summary judgment. They also contended that, in finding Diamond had probable cause to initiate the Marion County Lawsuit, the trial court improperly decided issues of fact that had already been determined, arguing that collateral estoppel applied.

However, the appellate court found that designated evidence supported the trial court’s determination that Diamond had probable cause to believe a fraudulent transfer had occurred between Ingram Quarry and Ingram and Ben’s Quarry. It further found that materials Diamond submitted in support of its motion for summary judgment were dispositive of the malice element of the tort.

“Even construed in a light most favorable to Ingram and Ben’s Quarry as the nonmovants, this evidence satisfied Diamond’s burden of proving the absence of a question of material fact as to any intended malicious prosecution of Ingram and Ben’s Quarry,” Judge Elaine B. Brown wrote for the court. “Further, when considering all the designated evidence together and in a light most favorable to Ingram and Ben’s Quarry, we cannot conclude that they then provided materials which demonstrated the existence of a genuine issue of material fact.”

Therefore, the appellate court affirmed Diamond’s motion for summary judgment in Benjamin P. Ingram and Ben's Quarry, LLC v. Diamond Equipment, Inc.,18A-CT-15.