The case was heard in the NSW District Court in Sydney. Photo: NSW Courts.
A District Court judge has dismissed a civil claim by two Griffith men that they lent a “bag of cash” to an acquaintance and are owed $680,000 in unpaid interest and the loan principal.
According to the published decision, Guiseppe “Joe” Pangallo and Francis “Frank” Puntoriero claimed they made a verbal agreement with Matthew Higgins in June 2010 to lend Mr Higgins $340,000 to help him purchase a property at Canbelego, a small town four hours north of Griffith.
Mr Pangallo and Mr Puntoriero (the plaintiffs) alleged they were in a meeting with two relatives in which the group counted the money – made up of $50 and $100 notes – in the space of 30 minutes and then handed it over to Mr Higgins in a bag.
However, there was no written evidence that this loan took place and Mr Higgins emphatically denied receiving the cash and denied the loan agreement ever occurred.
Judge Robert Newlinds concluded that on the balance of probabilities, the evidence did not support the claim that Mr Pangallo and Mr Puntoriero lent Mr Higgins the money.
“There are many levels where a close analysis of the plaintiffs’ explanation for the overall transaction really, either does not make sense, or at least makes the explanation implausible,” the judge ruled.
Mr Pangallo, a painter and farmer, told the court that large cash transactions like this were “not unusual” for many people in Griffith.
He said that he had known Mr Higgins since 1994 and claimed he had a conversation with him where Mr Higgins indicated that he wanted to borrow some money and pay 10 per cent interest so that he could purchase the property.
Mr Pangallo said he then got in touch with his friend Frank Puntoriero to ask if he wanted to contribute to the loan. Mr Puntoriero did not know Mr Higgins, but said he would agree to contribute some of his own money and would get some money from his parents.
The two plaintiffs claimed the agreement was for Mr Higgins to repay the loan at a rate of 10 per cent annual interest per year over 10 years and they were owed a total of $680,000 (the original $340,000 plus an additional $340,000 in interest).
Mr Higgins said he never made a loan agreement with these two men but instead had borrowed $280,000 from his friend Trevor Lucantonio to help purchase the Canbelego property.
Mr Lucantonio supported this claim and said Mr Higgins had since paid him back the money. Paper trail evidence of the loan transactions between the two men were tendered in court.
In their original evidence (affidavits) to court, Mr Pangallo and Mr Puntoriero did not mention Mr Lucantonio or his involvement in the alleged loan to Mr Higgins. However, following Mr Higgins’ response to their affidavits, both men said that Mr Lucantonio was involved in the loan in second affidavits submitted to court.
The two plaintiffs claimed Mr Higgins’ lawyers needed to receive the money “electronically,” so Mr Lucantonio had advanced an amount of money to the solicitors by direct transfer or bank cheque for use on the settlement. Mr Pangallo and Mr Puntoriero claimed the money they lent Mr Higgins was to be used to repay Mr Lucantonio.
“I was not impressed with any explanation for why Trevor’s involvement in the transaction did not form part of the original narratives, especially in Joe and Frank’s affidavits,” Judge Newlinds wrote in his ruling.
“I was not persuaded by the various explanations as to how so much money came to be counted in such a short time.”
The judge said the loan arrangement, if it occurred at all, was extremely informal, was not documented in any way and was based on nothing more than trust, which made it difficult to prove.
Judge Newlinds dismissed the claim and ordered that Mr Pangallo and Mr Puntoriero pay Mr Higgins’ court costs for the proceedings.
