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Des Moines Register BROTHERS WIN $1.4 MILLION IN LAWSUIT AGAINST BANK
A U.S. District Court jury has ordered the First National Bank of Oelwein to pay two former Iowa farmers more than $1,4 million, after nearly three years of litigation. After several hours of deliberations lasting until late Tuesday night, the jury awarded Kal and Robert Knickerbocker a total of $1,447,140 in a case in which the brothers alleged that the bank wrongfully held money owed them and forced them out of farming contracts with landlords in Minnesota, Wisconsin and four counties in northeast Iowa. Tom Riley, a Cedar Rapids lawyer representing the brothers, said the bank breached a contract it had with the brothers by not paying the landlords their rent. The Knickerbocker brothers could not farm and deserved compensation, they said. "The bank's defense contended that the farmers would have gone broke anyway even if they didn't pay the landlords," Riley said. "That's like a semi-truck running you over and saying, 'you're sick from the injuries,' so you would've died anyway." The Knickerbocker brothers originally won $3.6 million in damages in January 1986, but a judge overturned that decision later that year. Riley said the case was appealed in 1987 and a retr5ial was ordered. The new trial began last week. In 1978, the brothers rented 110 acres, and by 1983, their operation had expanded to 4,200 acres leased from landlords in Minnesota, Wisconsin and in the Iowa counties of Allamakee, Winneshiek, Fayette and Buchanan. They owned none of the land and rented all of the machinery they used. The brothers became heavily indebted to the Oelwein bank, owing more than $500,000 plus $400,000 owed to First Bank System of Minnesota. During the 1986 trial, the Oelwein Bank said the Knickerbocker brothers actually owed more than $3 million to creditors because of equipment leasing and other debts. Attorneys for the First National Bank of Oelwein could not be reached for comment. Kal Knickerbocker now works for the Florida Department of Agriculture, and Robert works in Phoenix, Ariz., selling insurance, stocks and bonds, Riley said. Tom Riley Law Firm, P.L.C.
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