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New Cases For the Week of October 29, 2001 -
November 2, 2001
Brought to you by BKINFORMATION.COM
- The Source for Business Bankruptcy Information on the Internet
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November 2, 2001
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Case
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Court
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Holding
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All
Denominational New Church v. Pelofsky
(Requires Adobe Acrobat plug-in to view) |
8th Cir.
BAP |
A
Chapter 11 debtor's failure to file monthly operating reports
justifies dismissal of the case. |
Chao
v. Hospital Staffing Services et. al.
(DBN Subscription Required) |
6th Cir. |
The
district court erred in issuing an injunction requiring a
bankruptcy trustee to deposit in trust for the benefit of
certain workers the proceeds of estate-owned goods that the
Secretary of Labor claimed were "hot goods" (i.e.,
goods produced by unpaid workers). Requiring the
trustee to divert the proceeds to the workers in this manner
was not in furtherance of the Secretary's statutory powers to
regulate and enforce labor standards, but rather was designed
to and would, if allowed to proceed, promote the private
rights of unpaid workers vis-a-vis other creditors of the
debtor's estate. |
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October 31, 2001
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Case
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Court
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Holding
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Arecibo
Community Health Care v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
(DBN Subscription Required) |
1st
Cir. |
Reversing
its prior ruling, the Court holds that upon a State's filing
of a proof of claim in the bankruptcy court, the State is not
shielded by the Eleventh Amendment from compulsory
counterclaims arising from the same transaction or occurrence
as was the subject of the proof of claim |
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October 30, 2001
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Case
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Court
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Holding
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In
re Beaty
(DBN Subscription Required) |
9th Cir.
BAP |
Laches
is not available as a defense to an action under 11 U.S.C.
523(a)(3), since such an equitable defense would contradict
the plain and unambiguous meaning of Fed. R. Bankr. P.
4007(b), which states that a 523(a)(3) complaint can be filed
"at any time." Thus, the bankruptcy court
erred in rejecting, on the basis of laches, an unlisted
creditor's postdischarge effort to prosecute a 523(a)(3)
claim. |
In
re Donovan
(DBN Subscription Required) |
9th Cir.
BAP |
The
"flexible finality" approach sometimes employed in
bankruptcy appeals to permit adjudication of matters that
might otherwise not be ripe does not usually apply to the
appeal of adversary proceedings. Adversary proceedings
are merely federal civil actions under another name, and do
not ordinarily present the types of uncertainties that
necessitate "flexible finality" analysis. Where the
bankruptcy court adjudicated one count of a two-count
dischargeability complaint, and did not make a Rule 54(b)
certification, the court's order was interlocutory, and the
appeal of the order was not final, depriving the appellate
court of jurisdiction and requiring dismissal of the appeal. |
Dullea
Land Co. v. Ideal Ag Corp.
(DBN Subscription Required) |
8th Cir.
BAP |
To
be clearly erroneous, a decision must strike an appellate
court as more than just maybe or probably wrong; it must . . .
strike the court as wrong with the force of a five-week-old,
unrefrigerated dead fish. The bankruptcy court did not
err in accepting the valuation testimony of a creditor's
expert witness without reducing the amount of such witness'
valuation on account of a higher valuation offered by the
debtor's expert witness. An appeallate court does not
sit in judgment of the credibility or demeanor of witnesses
and it is not the court's role to second guess a trial court's
decision to credit the testimony of one side's expert and
discredit the testimony of experts proffered by another. |
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October 29, 2001
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Case
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Court
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Holding
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In
re Gordon Sel-Way, Inc.
(DBN Subscription Required) |
6th Cir. |
Although
a creditor cannot normally setoff a postconfirmation debt
against a prepetition claim, when the debtor quickly
distributed all subject assets to other claimants upon
confirmation (without reserving any assets to pay a disputed
subordinated tax penalty claim), the court did not err in
allowing the Internal Revenue Service to setoff a
postconfirmation refund obligation against the prepetition
penalty obligation. |
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