Justia Bankruptcy Opinion Summaries

Debtors filed a motion requesting findings of contempt against Great Western. The bankruptcy court denied debtors' motion, concluding that there was no time frame within which the bank was required to file an amended UCC financing statement. The bankruptcy appellate panel affirmed the bankruptcy court's denial of the motion because the order approving the stipulation was not clear, unambiguous or certain. View "Fischer, et al. v. Great Western Bank" on Justia Law

Creditor appealed from the orders of the bankruptcy court denying his requests for relief from the automatic stay and for abstention and remand. The court held that the bankruptcy court properly denied creditor's request for stay relief where there was no purpose for granting the stay since creditor's state court malpractice and negligence actions against debtor were dischargeable debts and his fraud claim was discharged when creditor failed to timely file an adversary proceeding. Further, there was no basis for an order of abstention and remand. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the bankruptcy court. View "Chae v. Bennett" on Justia Law

Debtor filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy and claimed an annuity as exempt under 11 U.S.C. 522(b)(3)(C). The court agreed with the bankruptcy court's holding that the annuity owned by debtor qualified as an "individual retirement annuity" under section 408(b) of the Internal Revenue Code and was, therefore, exempt under section 522(b)(3)(C) of the Bankruptcy Code. View "Running v. Miller" on Justia Law

Debtors appealed the bankruptcy court's dismissal of their adversary proceeding. Citimortgage, a secured creditor, held a lien on debtors' primary residence and filed a claim and then debtors filed an objection urging disallowance of the claim as untimely. The parties agreed to the entry of an order disallowing the claim and debtors subsequently initiated an adversary proceeding seeking the avoidance of Citimortgage's lien. Relying on the plain language of 11 U.S.C. 506(d), debtors argued that disallowance of Citimortgage's claim necessarily voided Citimortgage's corresponding lien. Joining the Fourth and Seventh Circuits, the court rejected debtors' argument and agreed with the bankruptcy court that a secured creditor's lien was not void due solely to the fact that the secured creditor filed an untimely claim. View "Shelton, et al. v. Citimortgage" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed from orders of the bankruptcy court awarding judgments against him for intentional conversion of property, for costs of suit, and determining that the judgments were not discharged under 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(6). The bankruptcy appellate panel concluded that the bankruptcy court did not err in granting preclusive effect to the Minnesota state court's order regarding ownership of the assets at issue and defendant did not raise any other assignments of error. Accordingly, the panel affirmed the decision of the bankruptcy panel. View "Phillips, et al. v. Phillips" on Justia Law

Debtor filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. At issue on appeal was whether debtor had standing under Bankruptcy Code 522(h) to bring his action under Bankruptcy Code 545(2). Section 522(b) permitted a debtor to use certain exemptions, and generally, a debtor could exempt property that was exempt under section 522(d). In this instance, the amount of the exemption claimed by debtor under section 522(d)(1) was within the statutory limit allowed under that section, and the parties stipulated that the property was debtor's homestead. Accordingly, debtor had standing to bring his adversary proceeding where there was no basis in the record upon which the property would have been disqualified from being exempt if the trustee had avoided the lien. View "McCarthy v. Brevik Law" on Justia Law

Appellants appealed the district court's dismissal of all of their appeals concerning the purchase agreements to jointly-owned property and the underlying bankruptcy court orders. The property was owned by Sears Cattle and AFY, a debtor in bankruptcy. The court concluded that 11 U.S.C. 363(m) mooted the Tract 1 appeal. Appellants' failure to preserve their appeal of the district court's holding that Sears Cattle did not object to the motion to pay funds precluded the court from addressing Sears Cattle's appeal of the order to pay funds to the district court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's holding that Sears Cattle could not appeal the order. Because the Sears could not assert a direct interest in the litigation, they lacked appellate standing for bankruptcy purposes under the shareholder standing rule. Accordingly, the district court did not err in finding the Sears lacked standing to appeal the order to pay funds. Because AFY was not a debtor-in-possession, the trustee had standing to move to convert. The court rejected the Sears' remaining arguments. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Sears, et al. v. Badami" on Justia Law

Appellees made claims on AFY's bankruptcy estate in connection with the sale of appellees' former interests of AFY. Appellants claimed to be the only present shareholders of AFY. On appeal, appellants challenged the bankruptcy court's denial of their objections to the claims. The court dismissed the appeal because appellants lacked standing to appeal the bankruptcy court's order where AFY was the only party directly and adversely affected by the order and any effect on appellants was indirect, based on their status as shareholders of AFY. View "Sears, et al. v. Sears, et al." on Justia Law

Buffets filed suit against U.S. Bank and BMO Harris Bank alleging, among other things, violations of the Uniform Fiduciaries Act (UFA), Minn. Stat. 520.01 et seq. The district court asserted jurisdiction on the ground that the action was related to a Title 11 bankruptcy proceeding, 28 U.S.C. 1334(b), and that abstention in favor of state-court litigation was not required under 28 U.S.C. 1334(c)(2). The court concluded that, although the question of "related to bankruptcy" jurisdiction was difficult and close, the answer ultimately did not affect the court's jurisdiction. Even if the district court lacked "related to" bankruptcy jurisdiction - because the banks could not pursue indemnification claims against LGI - the court had jurisdiction over the appeal under the rationale of Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis. On the merits, the court concluded that Buffets has not established a genuine dispute as to whether either bank was indifferent to LGI's suspicious activity, such that its actions amounted to bad faith. Accordingly, the court affirmed the the district court's grant of summary judgment to the banks. View "Buffets, Inc., et al. v. BMO Harris Bank, et al." on Justia Law

Debtor filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition and her case was converted to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. On appeal, debtor challenged the bankruptcy court's order denying her motion to reopen her case to pursue an alleged violation of the discharge injunction. The bankruptcy appellate panel (BAP) affirmed the decision of the bankruptcy court where the bankruptcy court correctly concluded that debtor's allegations were without merit and, therefore, the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to reopen her bankruptcy case. View "Pennington-Thurman v. Bank of America N.A." on Justia Law