MIAMI – Buy Right Produce LLC recently filed a federal lawsuit under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) alleging Miami-based Genero Produce has not paid for produce it received from Buy Right.
According to the lawsuit filed Sept. 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Buy Right, based in South Carolina, sold truckloads of produce to Genaro Produce and others between November 2017 and May and defendant has not paid for the products it received, and currently owes a principal sum of $161,102.71.
Buy Right is seeking the principal amount plus 18 percent accrued interest per year, bad check fees “for checks tendered by Genaro Produce which were returned for insufficient funds,” as well as attorneys’ fees paid by Buy Right. The total amount sought by the plaintiff is $189,886.85.
“Genaro Produce has only been making only small, partial payments on an irregular basis,” according to the court documents filed on behalf of the plaintiff by Miami-based Henkel & Cohen P.A. Further, the filing states that the defendants’ payments to Buy Right “have decreased from approximately $20,000 per week in 2017 to only a few thousand dollars a month as of the filing date of this action, with no payments at all made in recent weeks.”
The filing notes that the last payment received from Genaro Produce was a $1,000 check dated Sept. 7.
“Genaro Produce has failed to preserve sufficient assets to satisfy its PACA Trust liabilities,” said the filing. “The remaining assets of Genaro Produce not already converted and dissipated by the defendants are insufficient to satisfy and pay all unpaid produce suppliers to Genaro Produce, such as Buy Right, who have eligible and perfected PACA Trust claims.”
The plaintiff has filed 17 counts against the defendants including “temporary preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to remedy the defendants’ failure to maintain, not convert and/or dissipate, and unlawful retention and possession of the PACA Trust assets of Genaro Produce.”
Additionally, the plaintiff alleges unfair conduct and seeks compensatory damages for “violation of the PACA’s requirement of prompt payment in full” as well as “for failure to maintain the PACA trust, including by the conversion and dissipation of Genaro Produce’s ACA Trust assets” and more.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division, case number 1:18-cv-34813