Opinion ID: 525066
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sugar Hill Transactions

Text: 5 In 1984, Sugar Hill paid Pisello approximately $156,109 in connection with his efforts to persuade to MCA to distribute Sugar Hill's records and to purchase Sugar Hill's catalog of master recordings. Again, several factors make Sugar Hill's payments to Pisello resemble loans. For example, Sugar Hill's president, Milton Malden, and one of its owners, Joseph Robinson, have testified that the payments were loans and that they thought that Pisello would repay them. Sugar Hill, in fact, treated the payments as loans on its books and told Pisello that it was treating them as loans. On the other hand several factors make the payments look like advances against the money that Pisello would receive as a commission if MCA purchased Sugar Hill's catalog. Malden has admitted that no loan documents were made, that he expected Pisello to repay Sugar Hill out of his commission, that the parties originally called the payments advances, and that Pisello did not repay the money.