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New Cases For the Week of July 29, 2002
- August 2, 2002
Brought to you by BKINFORMATION.COM
- The Source for Business Bankruptcy Information on the Internet
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August
2, 2002
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Case
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Court
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Holding
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SEC
v. Credit Bancorp Ltd.
(DBN Subscription Required) |
2d
Cir. |
The
United States did not waive
sovereign immunity in a bank
receivership proceeding,
thereby precluding the Court
from adjudicating the priority
of taxes vis-a-vis the claims
of customers. |
In
re U.S. Brass Corp.
(DBN Subscription Required) |
5th
Cir. |
The
Bankruptcy Court did not err
in finding that a
postconfirmation motion to
change a provision of a
confirmed plan to provide for
binding arbitration rather
than court adjudication sought
an improper modification of
the plan. |
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August
1, 2002
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Case
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Court
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Holding
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In
re Commercial Financial
Services, Inc.
(DBN Subscription Required) |
10th
Cir. |
The
Bankruptcy Code provides no
general equitable mechanism
for disallowing rights of
setoff that are expressly
preserved by section 553.
Consistent with the text of
section 553, the best
statement of modern law and
practice is that, if the
relevant claim and debt
constitute mutual obligations
within the meaning of section
553, a right of setoff should
be recognized in bankruptcy
unless the right is invalid in
the first instance under
applicable non-bankruptcy law,
or unless it is otherwise
proscribed by some express
provision of the Code. The
bankruptcy court erred in
finding that an acocunt was a
special account, precluding a
claimed right of setoff. |
In
re Federal-Mogul Global, Inc.
(DBN Subscription Required) |
3rd
Cir. |
The
Circuit Court lacks
jurisdiction to review a
District Court's decision
denying a motion to transfer
tens of thousands of
asbestos-related tort claims
and remanding these claims to
the state courts where they
were originally filed,
primarily on the ground that
the District Court had no
subject matter jurisdiction |
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July
29, 2002
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Case
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Court
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Holding
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Bender
Shipbuilding & Repair Co.
v U.S.
(DBN Subscription Required) |
Crt.
App. Fed. Cir. |
A
government agency did not
abuse its discretion in
determining that a contractor
in Ch. 11 bankruptcy would
likely have access to
sufficient funds to complete
the contracted work.
Although the funds were
subject to creditors' liens
and bankruptcy court approval,
(i) the court had already
approved an emergency cash
collateral order, (ii) the
purpose of Ch. 11 was
rehabilitation, not
liquidation and (iii) an
expert advised the government
that the court was likely to
allow use of the funds. |
In
re Hechinger Investment
Company of Delaware
(DBN Subscription Required) |
3rd
Cir. |
The
bankruptcy court did not err
in treating certain employee
benefits as administrative
expenses only to the extent
that they are attributable to
employment services performed
after the debtor filed for
relief under Chapter 11. |
In
re McGinnis
(DBN Subscription Required) |
8th
Cir. |
A
Chapter 7 order for relief is
a final order for purposes of
our jurisdiction under 28
U.S.C. § 158(d) |
Morlan
v. Universal Guaranty Life
Insurance Company
(DBN Subscription Required) |
7th
Cir. |
Although
a trustee's abandonment of a
class representative/debtor's
interest in a class
action was ineffective due to
lack of notice to creditor's
and a court order, the
procedural requirements
for abandonment exist
for the protection of the
debtor's creditors, not for
the protection of violators of
the debtor's rights.
Accordingly, the defendants in
the subject class action
lacked standing to assert that
the debtor did not own the
claims for which he served as
class representative. |
In
re Williams
(DBN Subscription Required) |
5th
Cir. |
The
bankruptcy court did not err
in finding that the debtors
could not challenge the
prepetition outcome of two
IBEW audits. The first
audit was immune from
challenge because a district
court had already litigated
the results in a contempt
proceeding thereby creating a
res judicata bar. The
second audit could not be
challenged because there was
uncontraverted testimony from
the auditor that the debtors
refused to cooperate in the
audit, and noncooperation
results in forfeiture of the
right to challenge the audit. |
In
re Castillo
(DBN Subscription Required) |
9th
Cir. |
A
standing Chapter 13 Bankruptcy
Trustee enjoys absolute
quasi-judicial immunity for
scheduling and noticing a
bankruptcy confirmation
hearing |
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