Tentative Rulings

The Tentative Rulings for Friday, January 9, 2026, are:

Re:                 Compeer Financial, ACA et al vs. Prosperity Farms, LLC

Case No.:   PCU323957 

Date:            January 9, 2026

Time:            1:30 PM 

Dept.           15-The Honorable Gary M. Johnson

Motion:      Corporate America Lending, Inc.’s Motion for Leave to Intervene

Tentative Ruling:  The motion is denied. 

Non-party Corporate America Lending, Inc. (CAL) moves to intervene in this action.

Compeer Financial, ACA; Compeer Financial, PCA; and Compeer Financial, FLCA—collectively, Compeer—bring this action to vacate/rescind a grant deed.

The case arises incident to the procurement and recordation of the subject grant deed by CAL, which occurred during entirely separate federal litigation brought by Compeer against CAL.  The federal litigation involved both arbitration and a court action in aid thereof. 

The pertinent background of the federal litigation is as follows:

Compeer alleged in the federal litigation that CAL sold it two loans that CAL had made to two borrower entities; that the borrowers later closed on a transaction to refinance the loans with another lender; that CAL received funds for payoff of the loans, totaling over $58 million, in connection with the refinancing; and that CAL kept, and did not pay over to Compeer, the payoff proceeds, despite Compeer’s entitlement to the funds as the owner of a 100% economic interest in the refinanced loans. 

CAL was ordered, at numerous points, to preserve the $58 million in disputed funds, and repeatedly failed/refused to do so.  CAL was repeatedly sanctioned. 

Then, one day, on October 17, 2024: (a) CAL transferred $23,000,000 of the disputed funds to the trust account of its counsel, Russell Georgeson; and (b) two of three owners of Prosperity Farms, LLC (Prosperity Farms) executed a grant deed purporting to transfer certain of Prosperity Farms’s real property to Compeer, and delivered the deed to Georgeson to hold in trust pending further order by the arbitration panel. 

CAL presented these actions as measures to comply with the previously issued orders to preserve the $58 million in disputed funds, the grant deed being offered as substitute collateral for the balance of disputed funds over and above the $23,000,000 transferred to Georgeson’s trust account. 

An interim award by a merits panel of arbitrators determined that CAL’s actions did not effectuate compliance.  The panel found “CAL’s late attempt to show compliance with the awards and order, by depositing a portion of the funds into Counsel’s Trust Account and offering a Grant Deed to secure the payment of any ultimate award on the merits, failed to adequately preserve the Payoff Proceeds and did not materially comply with the prior Awards and/or Order.”  Regarding “[t]he offer of the grant deed,” specifically, the panel stated that it “raises more issues than it solves … .”

Later, in a “partial final award of merits panel on Phase I [of the federal arbitration proceedings],” the merits panel ordered CAL, inter alia, to (a) “[i]mmediately and without delay … transfer to [Compeer] … the $23 million and any and all additional funds, including without limitation any and all accrued interest thereon, held in the account … identified as ‘C. Russell Georgeson, as Trustee for Corporate America Lending, Inc.,’ ” and (b) “[p]ending further instructions from this Panel, continue to hold in trust, and take no action which would or may in any way release, transfer, dissipate, damage or impair the Grant Deed … submitted in this arbitration.”

CAL did not, however, “continue to hold in trust, and take no action which would or may in any way release, transfer, dissipate, damage or impair the Grant Deed.”  Instead, in derogation of this express order, CAL recorded the grant deed, with Georgeson subsequently emailing counsel for Compeer to state that the deed had been recorded “Pursuant to the Partial Final Award of Merits Panel on Phase 1, last paragraph … .” 

Georgeson here referred to a paragraph of the partial final Phase I award that stated as follows: 

“Finally, Respondent deposited $23 million of the Payoff Proceeds into its Counsel's trust account, and also transferred a Grant Deed for Counsel to hold in trust, to await the direction of this Panel. Based on the award to Claimant of compensatory damages, prejudgment interest, attorneys' fees and costs, and administrative and arbitrator fees, the Panel directs Respondent to forthwith transfer those assets to Claimant in order to partially satisfy this Award.”

CAL and/or Georgeson, in effect, pretended, and have continued to pretend, that this paragraph directed that CAL record the subject grant deed rather than, as expressly provided elsewhere in the award, to “continue to hold [it] in trust, and take no action which would or may in any way release, transfer, dissipate, damage or impair [it].”

Compeer advised CAL, in any event, that it rejected the purported transfer of Prosperity Farm’s real property and sought assistance from the arbitration panel. 

In an “order on grant deed,” the panel specifically stated that its prior final award “did not contemplate the unilateral recording of the Grant Deed by CAL,” and it directed CAL to cooperate with necessary parties “to reverse or otherwise rectify the premature recordation of the Grant Deed and to restore it to Mr. Georgeson, to be held by him in Trust as required by … the Partial Final Award, or, at [Compeer’s] option, to be delivered to [Compeer] to be held as security for payment of the Judgment.”

It is important to note here that CAL had no ownership interest in the property described in the subject grant deed and no legal right to transfer the property itself.  Indeed, CAL did not purport to have such ownership or legal authority, and it did not, itself, execute the deed. 

How CAL came to procure the deed and present it during litigation against it remains the subject of continuing litigation, including this litigation.  The undisputed facts, at this point, though, are these: 

1. The real property described in the deed is, amongst other of Prosperity Farm’s property and assets, pledged as security for an approximate $32 million loan made to Prosperity Farms and Michael and Cynthia Graham, which loan proceeds were financed by Compeer;

2. The deed was executed by Michael Graham, a 25% owner of Prosperity Farms, and by Ron Cook, for CA Farms, LLC (CA Farms), which is a 50% owner of Prosperity Farms;

3. Ron Cook also substantially owns and controls CAL;

4. Cynthia Graham, Prosperity Farm’s remaining 25% owner, did not execute the deed; and

5. Michael Graham claims that he was misled by Cook concerning the purposes of the purported property transfer.   

Including the above-described federal arbitration and court proceedings in aid thereof, there are six actions pending concerning the disputes between Compeer and CAL at present.  Separate from these actions, there are now numerous other litigations pending at this court involving one or more parties to this case, as well as Cook, CA Farms, and others. 

Solely at issue in this case, though, is Compeer’s single cause of action to cancel/rescind the grant deed that CAL caused to be recorded during the above-described federal arbitration and court proceedings in aid thereof.

CAL seeks to intervene in this action because, it claims, it “complied with a Judgment [in the federal proceedings] that ordered it to transfer real property of Defendant, PROSPERITY FARMS, LLC (‘Prosperity Farms’), to Compeer by way of the Grant Deed that is the subject of this action,” and “Compeer seeks to cancel the Grant Deed, which threatens to impede CAL’s compliance with the Judgment.”

This is, of course, not accurate.  CAL was not ordered “to transfer real property of Defendant, PROSPERITY FARMS, LLC” as it had no power or authority to do so.  At multiple points in the federal litigation, it was expressly determined that CAL had not been ordered to transfer Prosperity Farms’s real property.

Oddly enough, CAL’s motion is principally supported by a declaration of Ron Cook who emphasizes his role as CEO of CAL and espouses that “CAL has an interest relating to the Grant Deed that is the subject of this action,” without once mentioning CA Farms, which is substantially owned and controlled by Cook and which owns 50% of Prosperity Farms.  Cook no doubt views himself as having coinciding concerns vis-à-vis CAL in the federal litigation (and other separate litigation) and vis-à-vis CA Farms, as part owner of Prosperity Farms in this case—his entity CAL has made clear that Prosperity Farms’s property presents a source of potential judgment debt relief for CAL in the federal litigation—but Cook’s concerns in this case are already represented to the extent they are pertinent here:  Prosperity Farms is, obviously, already a party. 

CAL’s apparent poor stewardship of the subject grant deed while in its possession—for property it didn’t own and had no right to transfer, signed by other, different parties—is clearly a relevant factual circumstance in this case, and no doubt one or more individuals associated with CAL could be relevant witnesses to matters at issue (indeed, most likely Mr. Cook), but none of this supplies a valid basis for CAL’s intervention as a party. CAL has no protectable interest in the real property described in the subject grant deed or the grant deed itself.  The protectable interest CAL describes it has is solely that of Prosperity Farms. 

CAL’s motion, accordingly, is denied. 

If no one requests oral argument, under Code of Civil Procedure section 1019.5(a) and California Rules of Court, rule 3.1312(a), no further written order is necessary. The minute order adopting this tentative ruling will become the order of the court and service by the clerk will constitute notice of the order

Examiner Notes for Probate Matters Calendared

• Visalia Division 
• South County Justice Center Division