The Brinkley headquarters of Turner Grain Merchandising Inc. and its related companies.
The case is now over involving a group of Lonoke County farmers who were victims of the defunct Turner Grain Inc. of Brinkely.
If you recall, in February, the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned a $12.1 million jury award to the farmers against K.B.X. Inc. of Little Rock, a grain exporter and merchandiser that did business with Turner Grain.
In the summer of 2014, K.B.X. paid Turner Grain more than $28 million with $5.95 million of that supposed to go to farmers but didn’t.
The state’s high court found that there wasn’t enough evidence to support the jury’s 2020 ruling against K.B.X.
The Supreme Court also overturned the award against K.B.X.’s owner and president, Steven Keith Sr.; Keith’s son, who worked at K.B.X., Steven Michael Keith Jr.; and employee Shay Sebree.
The farmers had asked justices to reconsider their ruling, but that request was denied last week. The high court also entered its mandate, which completed the case.
Attorney Scott Poynter of the Poynter Law Group of Little Rock, one of the lawyers who represented the K.B.X. defendants, told Whispers via email he was “very happy for KBX and its folks to have this case completely over, and to prevail on all claims.
“It’s long past time for this all to be done, obviously,” he said. “In the end, we are thankful to our Supreme Court for ruling that KBX paid every penny on its contracts with Turner Grain.”
The farmers were represented by Kendel Grooms and Don Campbell of Campbell & Grooms of Little Rock. Jerry Kelly of the Kelly Law Firm in Lonoke also was an attorney for the plaintiffs. Grooms was in court on Thursday and unavailable for comment.
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