WHEELING – More than a dozen physicians are suing First Choice America Community Federal Credit Union alleging they no longer owe on a debt.
The 15 physicians are seeking a declaration that no indebtedness is owed to the credit union by the physicians, who are members of LTAH Real Estate Holdings, according to a complaint filed in Hancock Circuit Court and later removed to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia at Wheeling.
Drs. Joseph E. Lewis, Paul A. Dibiase Jr., Samuel D. Licata, Patrick H. Macedonia, Nicholas P. Mastros, Charn Nandra, Mohammad P. Rahman, Patrick G. Rosario, Rafael Schmulevich, Satbir Singh, Shalu Singh, Vincent Stonebraker, Jeffrey B. Wilps, Abdullah Kalla and Ranjan Bhandari claim they reached a settlement agreement with First Choice and entered into a term loan agreement that was made effective on Aug. 29, 2012, pursuant to which First Choice made a commercial loan to LTAH and all of the individual borrowers in the amount of $9.5 million.
"As part of the term loan agreement and accompanying documents made effective Aug. 29, 2012, LTAH and its members, including the plaintiffs, were required to sign an open end mortgage and security agreement relative to the LTAH Real Estate, including its hospital building to provide security to First Choice in the event of default of the term loan agreement by LTAH and its members," the complaint states.
Counsel for First Choice claimed default under the agreement and sought to accelerate the terms of the agreement on Aug. 6, initially claiming indebtedness in the amount of $7.1 million, which included taxes in the amount of $237,540.47. Later, First Choice claimed the indebtedness was $6.9 million.
"Although First Choice has sought to accelerate the debt against LTAH and its members, including the plaintiffs, it has also demanded that it be permitted to maintain its mortgage the LTAH building and that it be permitted to foreclose on that LTAH building as a condition precedent to releasing any member of LTAH from personal liability," the complaint states.
Because First Choice demanded that it maintained its mortgage on the building and that it be able to foreclose on that building as a condition precedent to releasing any member of LTAH from personal liability, there appears to be no indebtedness owed by plaintiffs to First Choice, according to the suit.
The plaintiffs are seeking a declaration stating that they do not owe anything to First Choice. They are represented by Joseph G. Nogay and Maximillian F. Nogay of Sellitti Nogay & Nogay PLLC.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia case number 5:19-cv-00265