Boyd bankruptcy adversaries spar in court filings

DENVER — Berthoud resident Christopher Boyd has asked the U.S. District Court in Denver to overturn a ruling of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court that determined that because of fraudulent activity he could not use bankruptcy to discharge a court-ordered penalty.

His legal opponent, however, in a filing Dec. 15, argued that Boyd’s legal basis for seeking relief from the bankruptcy court’s judgment does not apply.

The case continues to wind its way through court. It began with a determination that Christopher Boyd and his father, former Boulder Best Bank president Alan Boyd, defrauded a Colorado hemp farmer. They promised to process the farmer’s 4,415-pound hemp crop into CBD and split the proceeds — except that the hemp crop disappeared. 

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The Boyds lost their court case, appealed and lost that. The hemp farmer, unable to collect on the court judgment, assigned his interest in the judgment to Hemp Recovery Co. LLC, which continued to seek collection.

Christopher Boyd filed bankruptcy. Hemp Recovery Co. filed an adversarial action within the bankruptcy case in an effort to prevent discharge of the court-ordered judgment. Hemp Recovery was successful in that effort.

Christopher Boyd appealed to the U.S. District Court in Denver, and pleadings were filed in November and December.

The arguments have been quite technical, involving specific applications of the law. Boyd argued that the bankruptcy court improperly applied collateral estoppel — whether the issues considered by the bankruptcy court were identical to the issue previously litigated. He also argued that verbal statements relied upon in the earlier state court decision were admissible in bankruptcy court, and whether Hemp Recovery Co. had standing to assert its claims in bankruptcy court because it was not the party originally damaged. 

Hemp Recovery countered each of those arguments and said Boyd “bears the initial burden of making a prima facie demonstration of the absence of genuine issue of material fact” in the bankruptcy court’s summary judgment. “Appellant failed to dispute or otherwise controvert any of the supporting facts …,” Hemp Recovery’s argument said. Further, since Boyd didn’t raise the issue of standing — or champerty — during the initial trial he couldn’t raise it in bankruptcy court.

Hemp Recovery seeks affirmation of the bankruptcy court judgment and payment of the $393,811 debt. 

The bankruptcy case, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Colorado, is 22-12455.