New Cases For the Week of July 7, 2010 - July 11, 2010

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July 8, 2010

Case

Court

Holding

In re Trinsic, Inc.
(DBN)
SD AL

Where a bankruptcy trustee sold the debtor's computer servers without deleting legally privileged files, he waived the debtor's attorney-client privilege as to those files, since he "should have known that there were many documents, some of which may be privileged, on the debtor's servers and computer hard drives."

Conversely, where the same debtor's former CFO secretly, and without permission, made copies of the debtor's hard drive before leaving the company, the trustee did not waive the attorney-client privilege as to that information because he immediately objected to the production of the files when he became aware of the secret copy.

In re Matter Of Texas Pig Stands, Inc.
(DBN)
5th Cir. Although a trustee's liability to the estate as an agent arises only upon proof of gross negligence, this standard is irrelevant to statutory standards of liability to creditors. A post-confirmation trustee for an operating debtor who failed to remit sales tax collected by the debtor was personally liable for the unpaid taxes pursuant to applicable State law. The confirmed plan's indemnity and exculpatory provisions did not protect the trustee, since his failure to remit the sales taxes was "willful misconduct."
     

 

 

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