Snow Covered Capital, LLC v. Weidner

── Snow Covered Capital, LLC v. Weidner ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: May 15, 2026 Category: General NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 15 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT SNOW COVERED CAPITAL, LLC, No. 25-124 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 2:19-cv-00595-APG-NJK v. MEMORANDUM* WILLIAM WEIDNER; ESTATE OF ANDREW S. FONFA, Defendants - Appellees, and LUCKY DRAGON, LP, DAVID JACOBY, ANDREW FONFA, SHELLEY D. KROHN, Trustee, Defendants. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada Andrew P. Gordon, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted March 10, 2026 Las Vegas, Nevada Before: BENNETT and SANCHEZ, Circuit Judges, and HOLCOMB, District Judge.** * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable John W. Holcomb, United States District Judge for the  In this deficiency judgment action, Snow Covered Capital, LLC (“SCC”) appeals the district court’s fair market value determination following a bench trial and the denial of contractual damages. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.1 We affirm. 1. “We review a district court’s findings of fact following a bench trial for clear error, and will reverse only if the district court’s findings are illogical, implausible, or without support in inferences from the record.” Chaudhry v. Aragón, 68 F.4th 1161, 1171 (9th Cir. 2023) (cleaned up). The district court properly reached its fair market value determination by weighing conflicting expert testimony and other evidence. It identified the strengths and weaknesses in each appraiser’s methodology, adopted the appraisal it deemed the most accurate, applied a reduction to account for potential skew, and used other indicators of fair market value to confirm its result. The district court’s determination that there was no deficiency under Nevada law was not clearly erroneous. Central District of California, sitting by designation. 1 At oral argument, this Court inquired as to its subject matter jurisdiction over this matter. The parties then filed a joint statement showing that, at the time the complaint was filed, SCC was a citizen of California, Alabama, and Delaware, and Defendants were citizens of Nevada and Texas. We are satisfied that diversity jurisdiction exists. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332; Grupo Dataflux v. Atlas Glob. Grp., L.P., 541 U.S. 567, 571 (2004) (“[We] measure[] all challenges to subject-matter jurisdiction premised upon diversity of citizenship against the state of facts that existed at the time of filing.”). 2 25-124  2. We review questions of law, including contract interpretation, de novo. See Schertzer v. Bank of Am., NA, 109 F.4th 1200, 1208 (9th Cir. 2024). SCC seeks to recover additional contractual damages pursuant to the Recourse Obligations Guaranty (the “Guaranty”) despite the district court’s finding of no deficiency. SCC’s request is foreclosed by the combination of its stipulation to pre-foreclosure damages and the survival clause of the Guaranty. SCC stipulated with Defendants that “the entire amount” of pre-foreclosure damages totaled $59,200,705.33, and it “agree[d] not to offer or argue that there are any other pre- foreclosure damages.” To the extent SCC seeks to add to its pre-foreclosure damages, the stipulation bars it from doing so. Fu