New Cases For the Week of October 13, 2003 - October 17, 2003

Brought to you by BKINFORMATION.COM - The Source for Business Bankruptcy Information on the Internet 

October 17, 2003

Case

Court

Holding

In re Swinney
(DBN Subscription Required)
Bankr. M.D. Ga. The court has no discretion to retain a case filed in the wrong venue.
In re Nordin
(DBN Subscription Required)
8th Cir. BAP The bankruptcy court lacked authority to extend the dischargeability filing deadline when the motion to extend was filed after the deadline expired.

A creditor who had no notice of the bar date should proceed under 11 USC 523(a)(3).

October 16, 2003

Case

Court

Holding

In re Lason, Inc.
(DBN Subscription Required)
Bankr. DE Although a secured creditor's rights to continue to assert an interest in a segregated fund containing the postpetition/preconfirmation proceeds of its collateral were effectively preserved in the debtor's confirmed plan, the secured creditor was not entitled to the funds.  In confirming the plan (which provided for distribution of cash and stock to the secured creditor) the court found that the secured creditor was receiving property equal to the amount of its claim.  Granting the creditor a right to the sale proceeds collateral would have resulted in a recovery greater than the amount of the secured creditor's claim, a result prohibited by 11 USC 506.
In re M&L Associates, Inc.
(DBN Subscription Required)
Bankr. N.D. TX Section 162.001(a) of the Texas Property Code establishes that funds received by a contractor are held in trust for payment of subcontractors.  In a a preference action, a subcontractor can assert as a defense that the funds it received were not property of the estate becuase of the trust aspect.  However, the subcontractor must show that the funds it received were funds received by the contractor on account of the project on which the subcontractor worked.  Where the debtor has commingled funds from several projects in its operating account, the defense fails unless the subcontractor can trace the funds.

October 15, 2003

Case

Court

Holding

In re Communications Dynamics, Inc.
(DBN Subscription Required)
Bankr. DE When, prepetition, an unsecured creditor downloaded a D&B report noting another creditor's security interest in a debtor's assets, the  unsecured creditor had received an "authenticated" notice of the secured creditor's lien, thus placing the unsecured creditor on notice of the lien and precluding setoff by the unsecured creditor against the debtor's accounts receivable.  However, a right of recoupment (which is in the nature of a defense to the account receivable) is not subordinate  to a secured creditor's lien, and the unsecured creditor successfully established that its rights under a master distribution agreement were recoupment rights even though the creditor's claims against the debtor arose from different sales of equipment than the debtor's claims against the creditor.

October 14, 2003

Case

Court

Holding

In re Wise
(DBN Subscription Required)
10th Cir. Spousal maintenance payments paid to a debtor by her ex-husband within 180 days after the filing of her Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition are not property of the bankruptcy estate under 11 U. S. C. § 541( a)(5)( B).
In re Pennino
(DBN Subscription Required)
8th Cir. BAP When there was no reasonable prospect for a debtor's reorganization unless she prevailed in her RICO Lawsuit pending in federal district court, the bankruptcy court did not err in abstaining from the sixth bankruptcy case filed by the debtor.
In re Crowley Milner & Co.
(DBN Subscription Required)
Bankr. E.D. Mich. Global "reservation of rights" language in a confirmed Chapter 11 plan, purporting to reserve the right to pursue "any and all present or future rights, claims or causes of action against any person that arose before or after the Commencement Date," was insufficiently specific to preserve a breach of fiduciary duty claims against the debtors' former chief executive officer based on the CEO's prepetition conduct.

October 13, 2003

Case

Court

Holding

In re Kindred Healthcare, Inc.
(DBN Subscription Required)
Bankr. DE For purposes of calculating fees due by a debtor in possession to the Office of the United States trustee, "disbursements" include all payments made by or for a debtor.  A consolidated debtor family which received first day authority to continue using an integrated cash management system owed UST fees based upon disbursements by the parent made on behalf of the individual debtor affiliates and not based upon the fiction that the parent was paying its own expenses.
Copyright © 2003  [BKINFORMATION.COM]. All rights reserved.