A motion for partial summary judgment was granted Tuesday in a First Arkansas Bank & Trust lawsuit against former photo archivist John Rogers of North Little Rock.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza's ruling gives First Arkansas, a Jacksonville bank that loaned more than $15 million to Rogers in 2011, first priority to the photo archives of the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press and other photo archives known as the Ponzini Collection. The ruling means First Arkansas will be first in line for sale proceeds when the receiver sells the archives.
Rogers borrowed the money from the bank to fund his purchases of newspaper photo archives throughout the country and collections of other photos.
Rogers, who faces about a dozen more lawsuits in Pulaski County, borrowed millions more from others, including friends, to help fund the purchases.
But even with Piazza's decision, there are still four or five issues remaining in the bank's 2014 lawsuit against Rogers' former business, Sports Card Plus Inc.
Those issues include a possible hearing date concerning the Conlon Collection, which includes a rare photo of baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb from 1910; and how to handle the Fairfax Media Management archives from Australia and New Zealand newspapers, Roger Rowe, who represents the Jacksonville bank, said in an interview after the hearing.
Michael McAfee, receiver in the lawsuits against Rogers, is close to finishing the digitization of the Fairfax photos, Rowe said.
First Arkansas already has won judgments against Rogers for more than $14.5 million. But it is not likely that the bank will be able to recover that much money from the sale of the archives, Rowe said.
"These photographic archives had been gone through several times by collectors," Rowe said. "It appears to me that a substantial number of the photographs were sold."
Rowe didn't have an estimate for how much the remaining archives are worth.
"It will be easier to quantify once the receiver gets the digitization completed of the Fairfax archives," Rowe said.
Fairfax is the largest virtually intact archive, Rowe said. The New Zealand government has the right to take back the actual photographs, Rowe said.
"So once that process is completed, probably within the next two months, we'll have a better idea of what Fairfax is worth," Rowe said.
Seth Hyder, an attorney representing Arthur and Paul Jaffe, said he needed to talk to his clients before determining whether to appeal Piazza's ruling. The Jaffes claimed that Rogers sold them a portion of the Detroit News and Ponzini archives before Rogers got the First Arkansas Bank loan.
Business on 08/10/2016