Genesis Office Systems, Inc. v. PNC Bank, N.A.

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-1681

GENESIS OFFICE SYSTEMS, INC.,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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