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New Cases For the Week of October 5, 2009 - October 9, 2009
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Click here to search prior New Opinion summaries.
| October 9, 2009 |
Case |
Court |
Holding |
Alticor, Inc. v. Nation Union Fire Insur. Co. of Pennsylvania
(DBN) |
6th Cir. |
Where an insured is both a creditor and a debtor of a bankrupt, the insurer's obligation to pay defense costs extends only to the insured's relationship as debtor (i.e., the insured's efforts to settle claims asserted by the bankruptcy estate). The insurer is not obligated to pay legal costs associated with the insured's prosecution of its rights as a creditor, regardless of whether those legal efforts might "put pressure" on the bankruptcy estate to settle with the insured. |
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| October 6, 2009 |
Case |
Court |
Holding |
In re Spansion, Inc.
(DBN) |
Bankr. DE |
Where a patent infringement action was, or could have been, commenced pre-petition, the automatic stay applies to such an action, even where infringement continues post-petition. A creditor may not avoid the automatic stay by bifurcating a patent infringement action into two actions, one seeking pre-petition relief and the other post-petition relief. If infringement continues post-petition, the creditor's rights include: (i) an administrative claim, (ii) an injunction and (iii) relief from the automatic stay to allow pre-petition litigation to continue. |
In re Swor
(DBN) |
5th Cir. |
Under the Texas construction trust fund statute funds held in trust could be used to repay loans made for construction expenses, but the debtors here did not not prove that they made loans to the construction business and the money they transferred to the business was more properly characterized as a capital contribution. Return of capital is a diversion of trust funds. |
In re Greene
(DBN) |
9th Cir. |
In debtor's appeal from the district court's order affirming a bankruptcy court's decision limiting the debtor's homestead exemption in his bankruptcy petition to $125,000 pursuant to 11 U.S.C. section 522(p), the order is affirmed in part where no pre-petition appreciation of the property at issue occurred. However, the order is reversed in part where "any amount of interest that was acquired," as used in section 522(p)(1), meant the acquisition of ownership of real property and the monetary cap in section 522(p) did not apply to property to which a debtor acquired title more than 1215 days before she or he filed a bankruptcy petition. |
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