Court Opinion

ID: 9770240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:55:29.398662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:15.906386
License: Public Domain

HECHT, Justice,
dissenting.
As the Court’s opinion makes clear, the Resolution Trust Corporation was entitled to summary judgment against Dudley Stiles unless Stiles’ summary judgment evidence raised a genuine issue of material fact regarding one of his affirmative defenses of *27release, accord and satisfaction, payment or estoppel. None of those defenses was available against the RTC unless Stiles’ evidence met the requirements of D’Oench, Duhme & Co. v. FDIC, 815 U.S. 447, 62 S.Ct. 676, 86 L.Ed. 956 (1942), and 12 U.S.C. § 1823(e), set out in the Court’s opinion. It did not. Nevertheless, the Court holds that the RTC was not entitled to summary judgment because it did not assert D’Oench, Duhme or section 1823(e) in reply to Stiles’ response to its motion for summary judgment. In my view, the RTC was not required to do so. Section 1823(e), which codifies the rule in D’Oench, Duhme, states that “[n]o agreement ... shall be valid against the [RTC] unless” it meets certain requirements. The agreement Stiles alleges, as the basis for his affirmative defenses, does not meet these requirements. If the plaintiff in this case were an individual, Stiles’ evidence would raise a fact issue regarding his asserted defenses. To raise a fact issue against the RTC, however, Stiles was obliged to offer evidence not simply of some agreement but of an agreement legally sufficient to defeat the RTC’s claim; this he failed to do. The RTC was not obliged to disprove the existence of such an agreement, or even to point out that it is entitled to the benefit of D’Oench, Duhme and section 1823(e). As a matter of law, an agreement asserted in defense of the RTC’s claim on a note must meet certain requirements. In this case defendant produced no evidence of an agreement that met these requirements. I believe the lower courts were correct, and I would affirm their judgments.