Loan agreement breach; Amounts still owed

The court held that, based on the evidence presented, no genuine issue of material fact existed that defendant still owed plaintiff the amounts under the parties’ loan agreements that were reflected in the trial court’s award to plaintiff. Defendant did not dispute that plaintiff made the loans and that he breached the agreements. The only evidence he offered to support his assertion that “the full amount of each loan had been repaid was a handwritten note, a copy of the quitclaim deed demonstrating his conveyance of an ownership interest in his 80-acre parcel to plaintiff, and documents and photos related to his excavator.” On the other hand, plaintiff “offered an affidavit addressing the date and amount of the loans he had provided to defendant; the amount, if any, defendant had repaid for each loan; and the outstanding amount, if any, for each loan.” In his briefing, he “also pointed out the deficiencies in defendant’s offered proofs.” The court found that defendant’s proofs as to the excavator, “at most, established his ownership of it; [he] offered nothing to establish” its value, that plaintiff removed it “as defendant claimed, or—even assuming plaintiff had removed it—that he did so as a means of offsetting defendant’s outstanding debts. Meanwhile, plaintiff stated in his affidavit that he never took [the] excavator and that, aside from defendant’s conveyance of an ownership interest in his 80-acre parcel to satisfy the promissory note’s balance, the parties never agreed to any other accord and satisfaction to pay off defendant’s remaining debts. Similarly, as to the conveyance of the ownership interest in his 80-acre parcel, defendant’s proofs established only that [it] occurred and that the parcel had not been used as security for the promissory note or loan agreement; the proofs offered nothing to create a genuine factual dispute that the conveyance was done to satisfy a debt other than that owed for the promissory note.” Further, the timing of the conveyance belied “any notion that it may have been intended to apply to the debt owed under the loan agreement.” As to the handwritten note, it was “not dated or signed by either party,” nor did it make any mention of them. Affirmed.