No guaranty

The Fifth Circuit continued its conservative approach to the construction of guaranties in McLane Foodservice Inc. v. Table Rock Restaurants, LLC, No. 12-50980 (Nov. 15, 2013).   In 1997, an investor in a restaurant chain guaranteed the chain’s debts to PFS, a division of Pepsioco.  Years later, McLane became the owner of PFS’s operations after a series of sales transactions.  In 2010, a customer of McLane called Table Rock went out of business, owing McLane over $400,000, and sought to collect on the original guaranty. The Fifth Circuit agreed with the district court that the guaranty only reached credit extended by PFS, that McLane was not an “affiliate” of PFS, and that “successors and assigns” language in the guaranty could not expand the scope of the underlying guaranty obligation.