Justia Bankruptcy Opinion Summaries

Jason’s, a wholesaler, provided unprocessed meat to Sparrer, a sausage manufacturer. Sparrer filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition. During the 90-day preference period preceding the filing, Sparrer paid invoices from Jason’s totaling $586,658.10. The Unsecured Creditors Committee sought to recover those payments as avoidable preferences under 11 U.S.C. 547(b). Jason’s asserted that the transfers were made in the ordinary course of business and were nonavoidable under section 547(c)(2), or that it had provided meat to Sparrer in January-February of 2012 without receiving payment, offsetting its preference liability (section 547(c)(4)). The bankruptcy judge determined that before the preference period, Sparrer generally paid Jason’s invoices within 16-28 days. Of the 23 invoices that Sparrer paid during the preference period, 12 fell within that range. The judge concluded that those 12 payments were ordinary and nonavoidable. The remaining 11 payments, totaling $306,110.23, were not ordinary and must be returned to the bankruptcy estate. The district court affirmed. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Nothing indicated that it was unusual for Sparrer to pay Jason’s invoices within 14, 29, or 31 days of issuance. The only payments that can fairly be deemed out of the ordinary are those made 37-38 days after receipt of invoice. Jason’s preference liability is limited to those invoices and is offset by invoices Sparrer failed to pay. View "Jason's Foods, Inc. v. Unsecured Creditors Comm." on Justia Law

Creditor appealed the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel's (BAP) decision determining that the exception to discharge found in 11 U.S.C. 727(a)(2) did not apply to debtor. The court held that section 727(a)(2), which prevents the bankruptcy court from granting a debtor a discharge if the debtor improperly transferred property “within one year before the date of the filing of the petition” in bankruptcy, is not subject to equitable tolling. In this case, because the transfer of the Lake Harbor property took place more than one year before debtor filed his Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition and section 727(a)(2) is not subject to equitable tolling, debtor was not precluded from discharge of his debts under section 727(a)(2). Accordingly, the court concluded that the bankruptcy court properly granted summary judgment to debtor on this issue. View "DeNoce v. Neff" on Justia Law

The adversary action comprises the claims, counterclaims, and affirmative defenses between two sides of a business scheme to buy, renovate, and operate a Days Inn. This appeal stems from the district court’s order affirming a bankruptcy court judgment rendered after trial in the adversary action. Appellant and his brother formed the plan to buy the hotel, and appellees are the investors that the brothers convinced to buy a fifty-percent stake in the scheme and the company that the three investors formed to hold their membership interest. The court concluded that appellant's res judicata argument fails where the release claim at issue was filed in the original action while summary judgment was still interlocutory. Thus, the claim was properly preserved through the severance order for later adjudication, and res judicata does not bar it. The court also concluded that the district court did not err in affirming the bankruptcy court judgment that appellant breached the settlement agreement. Further, the district court properly affirmed the bankruptcy court's dismissal of appellant's breach-of-guaranty claim against the investors, but not as to the company. The court affirmed in part and vacated in part, remanding for additional proceedings, including a determination of what percentage of the attorney’s fees were attributable to the breach-of-contract claim. View "Pirani v. Baharia" on Justia Law

In 2005, Water's Edge, LLC purchased lots 62-69 of "Re-Subdivision A" in Baldwin County, commonly referred to as Gulf Shores Yacht Club and Marina ("the property"). Fairfield Financial Services, Inc. loaned Water's Edge $12.8 million of the $13 million needed to purchase the property. In 2006, Fairfield notified Water's Edge that it would not renew Water's Edge's loan. The members of Water's Edge authorized the managers to seek new financing. In December 2006, Vision Bank agreed to loan Water's Edge $14.5 million. Vision Bank later merged with SE Property Holdings, LLC ("SEPH"). Certain members of Water's Edge signed agreements guaranteeing all of Water's Edge's debt to SEPH. In October 2008, SEPH notified Water's Edge that the loans were in default. In October 2010, SEPH sued Water's Edge and 28 individuals, including the guarantors, based on the promissory notes and guaranty agreements pertaining to the various loans issued over the years. The trial took place in late 2014. The trial court did not submit the case to the jury, but instead discharged the jury and entered an order granting SEPH's motion for a JML. The trial court found the guarantors and the other defendants jointly and severally liable on continuing unlimited guaranty agreements. The trial court found each of them individually liable for differing amounts based on continuing limited guaranty agreements they had signed. A month later, the trial court revised its earlier order, taking into account settlements and declarations of bankruptcy that certain guarantors had declared. The guarantors timely filed a motion to alter, amend, or vacate the judgment, which the trial court denied. The guarantors then appealed. The Alabama Supreme Court dismissed the appeals, finding that the trial court's judgment was not final because the trial court did not have jurisdiction to dismiss SEPH's claims against one of the guarantors, and the trial court did not certify its order as final pursuant to Rule 54(b). "An order entered in violation of the automatic bankruptcy stay is void as to the debtor, thus leaving the claims against [one of the guarantors] pending and rendering the judgment nonfinal. A nonfinal judgment will not support an appeal." View "Gaddy v. SE Property Holdings, LLC" on Justia Law

A federal district court certified two questions of law to the Iowa Supreme Court in a priority dispute between competing creditors of a bankrupt hog operation. Crooked Creek Corporation operated a farrow-to-finish hog facility where it bred gilts and sows and raised their litters for slaughter. After the company filed for bankruptcy, the hogs were sold, but the sale did not generate enough money to pay off competing liens asserted by two of Crooked Creek’s creditors: Oyens Feed & Supply, Inc. and Primebank. Oyens Feed held an agricultural supply dealer lien because it sold Crooked Creek feed “on credit . . . to fatten the hogs to market weight.” Primebank had a perfected article 9 security interest in the hogs to secure two promissory notes predating Oyens Feed’s section 570A.5(3) agricultural supply dealer lien in the hogs. At trial, Oyens Feed claimed it was entitled to all of the escrowed funds because its agricultural supply dealer lien had superpriority over Primebank’s earlier perfected security interest. The bankruptcy court concluded the plain meaning of section 570A.4 created a “discrete window of time,” beginning with the farmer’s purchase of feed and ending thirty-one days later, within which an agricultural supply dealer must file a financing statement to perfect its lien. The bankruptcy court concluded Oyens Feed had only perfected its lien as to amounts for feed delivered in the thirty-one days preceding the filing of each of its financing statements. In reaching its decision on the extent of Oyens Feed’s lien in the escrowed funds, the bankruptcy court reasoned the acquisition price of the hogs was zero because Crooked Creek raised hogs from birth rather than purchasing them. The court concluded “the ‘purchase price’ comprises the vast majority, if not all of, the ‘acquisition price’ for . . . purposes of Iowa Code § 570A.5(3).” The United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa asked the Iowa Supreme Court: (1) whether, pursuant to Iowa Code section 570A.4(2), was an agricultural supply dealer required to file a new financing statement every thirty-one (31) days in order to maintain perfection of its agricultural supply dealer’s lien as to feed supplied within the preceding thirty-one (31) day period?; and (2) whether pursuant to Iowa Code section 570A.5(3), was the “acquisition price” zero when the livestock are born in the farmer’s facility? The Supreme Court answered both certified questions in the affirmative. View "Oyens Feed & Supply, Inc. v. Primebank" on Justia Law

Morrison Informatics, Inc. (the “Company”) filed a petition for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy relief in September 2009. In May 2011, the Company and two shareholders, who also were officers of the corporation, commenced a civil action in the court of common pleas against Members 1st Federal Credit Union, Mark Zampelli, and Scott Douglass. In the ensuing complaint, the Company and the Shareholders asserted that, beginning sometime after January 2005 and continuing into 2009, the Company’s finance manager, Zampelli, had colluded with a Credit Union relationships officer, Douglass, to embezzle Company funds. The complaint advanced claims against the Credit Union, Zampelli, and Douglass variously sounding in fraud, conversion, civil conspiracy, and negligence. The question this case presented for the Supreme Court's review concerned whether a federal bankruptcy trustee could be substituted as a plaintiff in a civil action previously commenced by the debtor in bankruptcy in a Pennsylvania state court, although the statutory limitations period expired prior to the attempted substitution. "Although we recognize that the interests of a debtor and a trustee may diverge in some respects, we find it most important that trustees’ interests are derivative, and accordingly, they generally cannot assert any greater rights as against defendants than debtors could have in the first instance." The Supreme Court departed from the Superior Court’s focus on the continued “existence” of the Company after the initiation of insolvency proceedings, and the Court rejected a strict rule foreclosing a relation-back approach to substitution of a bankruptcy trustee for a debtor. Instead, the Court held that relation back in favor of a federal bankruptcy trustee was appropriate, at least where the trustee has acted in a reasonably diligent fashion to secure his or her substitution, and there is no demonstrable prejudice to defendants. View "Morrison Info. v. Members 1st FCU" on Justia Law

In Crawford v. LVNV Funding, LLC, the court held that a debt collector violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. 1692e, when it files a proof of claim in a bankruptcy case on a debt that it knows to be time-barred. The district court in these cases interpreted the Crawford ruling as having placed the FDCPA and the Bankruptcy Code in irreconcilable conflict. The court concluded that, although the Code allows all creditors to file proofs of claim in bankruptcy cases, the Code does not at the same time protect those creditors from all liability. A particular subset of creditors - debt collectors - may be liable under the FDCPA for bankruptcy filings they know to be time-barred. Therefore, the court found no irreconcilable conflict between the FDCPA and the Code. The court reversed and remanded. View "Johnson v. Midland Funding, LLC" on Justia Law

Castaic, debtors, challenged the district court's dismissal of this bankruptcy appeal as moot under 11 U.S.C. 363(m). During the pendency of the appeal, the bankruptcy court dismissed the underlying bankruptcy cases as well. Castaic did not appeal those dismissals, and after 14 days, they became final. Therefore, the court concluded that there is no longer any case or controversy, and the court has no power to grant Castaic any effective relief. The court dismissed the appeal as moot under Article III. View "In the matter of Castaic Partners II, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a health care liability suit against defendants in federal court under the court’s bankruptcy jurisdiction. Section 74.351 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code requires plaintiffs in health care liability cases to serve an expert report within 120 days after the filing of a defendant’s original answer. Following limited discovery, defendants moved to dismiss because plaintiffs had failed to serve an expert report in accordance with section 74.351’s requirements. The district court ultimately dismissed the case with prejudice. The court held that section 74.351 answers the same question as Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 and 37, and these Rules represent a valid exercise of Congress’ rulemaking authority. Accordingly, a federal court entertaining state law claims may not apply section 74.351. The court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Passmore v. Baylor Health Care" on Justia Law

The trustee for PCI and eight associated special-purpose entities (SPEs) filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions in the aftermath of Thomas Petters' Ponzi scheme. The bankruptcy court consolidated the bankruptcy estates of PCI and the SPEs “for all purposes substantive and administrative.” Lenders to PCI and the SPEs appealed. The district court dismissed, holding the Lenders did not have standing to appeal the consolidation order because they were not “persons aggrieved.” The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to estop the trustee from asserting that the Lenders are not persons aggrieved; having held that the persons aggrieved doctrine survives the 1978 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code, the court declined to reconsider the doctrine; and the district court did not err in dismissing the Lenders under the persons aggrieved doctrine. In this case, the Lenders’ interests here are not central to the bankruptcy process, and allowing them to appeal the bankruptcy court’s order would completely undermine the rationale behind the standard and bring bankruptcy proceedings to a grinding halt. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Opportunity Finance, LLC v. Kelley" on Justia Law