Opinion ID: 6471493
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plaintiffs’ Claim of Entitlement to Summary Judgment.

Text: If an action may be maintained to collect debts incurred on credit sales made during the initial thirty-day period, plaintiffs argue, they are entitled to summary judgment on their claims for debts arising in the first thirty days of sales to each based upon evidence of their accounts placed in the record before the district court. The amounts of those claims are supported by undisputed evidence in the record. However, other questions of fact regarding the terms of the sales in question and the intentions of the parties are raised by that evidence. In addition to forbidding extensions of credit for more than thirty days, Section 60-7A-9 makes it a violation of the Liquor Control Act for any wholesaler to “agree to extend credit” for more than thirty days. The invoices and statements issued by plaintiffs to defendants state that the total sale price is due and payable after a specified number of days within the thirty-day period authorized by Section 60-7A-9, but state further that any invoice not timely paid shall bear a stated rate of interest from the date of the delivery. Other evidence in the record indicates that defendants acknowledged their indebtedness on the sales in question, that plaintiffs fore-bore from bringing any collection action, and that plaintiffs continued making sales on credit for several months after the first invoices issued by each had gone unpaid for more than thirty days. Cf. New Mexico Beverage Co. v. Blything, 102 N.M. at 534, 697 P.2d at 953 (continued deliveries and delay in brining suit). We believe that the evidence before the district court presented a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether plaintiffs agreed to extend credit to defendants for more than thirty days. Summary judgment cannot be granted if the evidence shows that there was a genuine issue as to any material fact. Pharmaseal Laboratories, Inc. v. Goffe, 90 N.M. 753, 756, 568 P.2d 589, 592 (1977). The district court therefore did not err in denying plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment in the amount of the debts incurred by defendants in the initial thirty-day periods.