## Facts

- Holden Machinery, an English supplier of used farm equipment, sold equipment to Fried Group, Inc., doing business as Sundance Tractor & Mower, for resale in the United States.
- Sundance entered bankruptcy, and the dispute arose in the claim-allowance process.
- The parties’ dispute concerned 14 pieces of equipment with a total contract price of $65,750.00.
- Sundance asserted the equipment was nonconforming and that it incurred repair costs to make the items marketable.
- Holden filed a motion seeking to terminate the parties’ financing arrangement, obtain possession of consigned goods, and obtain an accounting; Sundance sought to reduce Holden’s claim through offsets and credits.
- After an evidentiary hearing, the court fixed the following amounts:
  - Reasonable repair costs: $7,292.87.
  - Credits for payments and returned goods: $32,073.27.
  - Reimbursement for an import fee paid on Holden’s behalf: $629.29.
  - Attorney’s fees awarded to Sundance: $2,688.50.
- Holden moved for reconsideration, challenging the offsets, credits, and related awards.

## Issues

1. Whether Holden established sufficient grounds for reconsideration of the prior order fixing repair-cost offsets, credits, and attorney’s fees.
2. Whether the court’s factual findings and application of Georgia UCC buyer-remedy concepts (as applied through bankruptcy setoff/recoupment) contained clear error warranting amendment of the prior order.

## Decision

- The court denied Holden’s motion for reconsideration.
- The court left in place its prior findings on contract price, repair-cost offsets, credits for payments and returned goods, the import-fee reimbursement, and attorney’s fees.
- The court concluded Holden largely attempted to reargue matters resolved after a full evidentiary hearing and did not show clear factual or legal error or other recognized grounds for reconsideration.

## Legal Principles

- Reconsideration in bankruptcy is an extraordinary remedy; it is not a vehicle to relitigate issues decided after an evidentiary hearing without a showing such as clear error of law or fact, newly discovered evidence, or comparable justification.
- In claim-allowance disputes involving sales of goods, a buyer’s UCC-based remedies for nonconforming goods may be asserted in bankruptcy as setoff or recoupment to reduce a seller’s allowed claim.
- Factual findings on damages and credits will be maintained on reconsideration when supported by the evidentiary record.

## Conclusion

The bankruptcy court refused to amend its prior order because the record supported the earlier calculations and Holden did not meet the demanding standard for reconsideration, leaving Sundance’s repair-cost offset and other credits in place to reduce Holden’s claim.


Holden Machinery v. Sundance Tractor & Mower (In re Fried Grp., Inc.), 218 B.R. 247 (Bankr. M.D. Ga. 1998)