Judge Denies Terminella Motion

Washington County Circuit Judge Kim Smith denied Tom Terminella’s motion for a new trial in a dispute won by Metropolitan National Bank of Little Rock.

Terminella had requested a new trial on March 13 after Smith found in favor of Metropolitan in February for more than $7 million in a foreclosure/countersuit trial that ended on Oct. 24.

Terminella requested the new trial based on an allegation than Metropolitan CEO Lunsford Bridges made a settlement offer to Terminella’s partner and defendant/counter-plaintiff Tom Morter that was conditional on Morter not testifying at the trial.

In his March 31 ruling, Smith stated that he found that Terminella’s motion for a new trial was based on allegations and hearsay and did not meet the burden of proof to establish misconduct or irregularity in the case.

The allegations against Bridges were supported in Terminella’s filings by affidavits recounting the supposedly conditional offer to Morter being made in the midst of the trial. Morter, a 31 percent guarantor on the original $9.63 million loan, settled with Metropolitan for a little less than $104,000 on the day the trial ended.

Terminella’s attorneys should have brought up the allegations at trial, Smith ruled.

The foreclosure in question concerned about 140 acres in Springdale that was to be the site of Phase I of the Grand Valley Ridge subdivision. MNB took possession of the land at a foreclosure sale in March for $4.1 million.