Genesis Office Systems, Inc. v. PNC Bank, N.A. , 639 F. App'x 939 ( 2016 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-1681
GENESIS OFFICE SYSTEMS, INC.,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
PNC BANK, N.A.,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Peter J. Messitte, Senior District
Judge. (8:14-cv-02704-PJM)
Submitted: December 22, 2015 Decided: February 26, 2016
Before DIAZ and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Rickey Nelson Jones, LAW OFFICES OF REVEREND RICKEY NELSON
JONES, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. Michael S. Barranco,
TREANOR POPE & HUGHES, P.A., Towson, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
In 2014, Ronald Hawkins, the Chief Executive Officer of
Genesis Office Systems, Inc. (“Genesis”), sought to redeem two
Certificates of Deposit (“CDs”), which were opened in 1997 and
2001. The officials of PNC Bank, N.A. (“PNC”) informed him that
the CDs had been redeemed in 2002. Genesis thereafter filed an
action against PNC claiming conversion of the funds. The
district court granted summary judgment in favor of PNC,
determining that Genesis’s claim was filed beyond the limitation
period and that the undisputed evidence showed that the CDs had
been redeemed. We affirm.
We review the district court’s order granting summary
judgment de novo, viewing the facts and drawing all reasonable
inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.
Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau Corp., 786 F.3d 264, 276 (4th
Cir. 2015) (en banc). Summary judgment is properly granted “if
the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). If the moving party
sufficiently supports its motion for summary judgment, the
nonmoving party must demonstrate “that there are genuine issues
of material fact.” Emmett v. Johnson, 532 F.3d 291, 297 (4th
Cir. 2008). “Conclusory or speculative allegations do not
suffice, nor does a mere scintilla of evidence in support of
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[the nonmoving party’s] case.” Thompson v. Potomac Elec. Power
Co., 312 F.3d 645, 649 (4th Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
PNC provided unrefuted documentary evidence showing the
dates the CDs were opened, the renewal dates, and the dates of
redemption in 2002. The court noted that 12 years passed
between 2002, when the CDs were redeemed, and 2014, when Hawkins
attempted to redeem the CDs. In those 12 years, Genesis and
Hawkins received no interest statements, tax statements, renewal
notices, or other communications from the bank with respect to
the CDs.
Addressing whether there existed any genuine issue of fact,
the district court stated that the evidence showed that Genesis
transferred the CDs to Hawkins to pay its debt to Hawkins.
Thus, Genesis no longer had a claim to the money in the CDs. To
the extent that Hawkins had a claim to the CDs, the court ruled
that, by waiting 12 years to assert a claim, Hawkins lost any
claim he may have had. See Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc.
§ 5-101 (2013) (providing for three-year limitation period for
contract and debt claims).
Genesis argued that the CDs had automatic renewal
provisions and therefore continued indefinitely without any
action required on the part of the holder of the CDs, and
therefore the statute of limitations did not start to run.
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However, in light of the evidence that the CDs had been redeemed
— and the absence of any acknowledgment of the CDs after 2002 —
the automatic renewal provision does not refute the evidence
that the CDs had been redeemed.
We conclude that the district court did not err in
determining that there were no genuine issues of material fact.
Notably, PNC presented documentary evidence of the two CDs
issued to Genesis and the transactions related to the CDs.
These documents showed the dates the CDs were issued, renewal
dates, and the final entry on both was “TD Redemption” and an
amount showing the value of the CD on March 29, 2002, and
September 9, 2002, the dates of redemption. Genesis presented
no evidence in support of its claim that the CDs had not been
redeemed, other than the fact that Hawkins was in possession of
what he claimed were the original CD certificates. Concerning
Hawkins’ affidavit, he purported to explain why the CDs no
longer appeared on the tax returns and the corporate books of
Genesis by stating that he, as CEO, decided to transfer the CDs
to his personal possession in satisfaction of Genesis’ debt to
him. However, no official transfer of the CDs was made.
Moreover, during his deposition testimony, Hawkins
testified that he did not know and could not explain why the CDs
no longer appeared on the corporation’s tax statements. We
conclude that the statements in Hawkins’ self-serving,
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uncorroborated affidavit — which are contrary to his prior sworn
testimony — are insufficient to create a material issue of fact.
See Cleveland v. Policy Mgmt. Sys. Corp., 526 U.S. 795, 806
(1999) (“[A] party cannot create a genuine issue of fact
sufficient to survive summary judgment simply by contradicting
his or her own previous sworn statement (by, say, filing a later
affidavit that flatly contradicts that party’s earlier sworn
deposition) without explaining the contradiction or attempting
to resolve the disparity.”); see In re Family Dollar FLSA
Litig., 637 F.3d 508, 512 (4th Cir. 2011) (same).
In the face of PNC’s evidence that the CDs had been
redeemed in 2002, Genesis failed to present any evidence to show
the existence of any genuine issues of material fact. See
Emmett, 532 F.3d at 297. Accordingly, summary judgment was
properly entered in favor of PNC. We therefore affirm the
district court’s order. We dispense with oral argument because
the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the
materials before this court and argument would not aid the
decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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