The "any conceivable effect" test for "related to" jurisdiction does not apply post-confirmation. Bankruptcy courts generally do not retain "related to" jurisdiction over claims that could have existed entirely apart from the bankruptcy proceeding and did not necessarily depend upon resolution of a substantial question of bankruptcy law. Matters affecting the interpretation, implementation, consummation, execution, or administration of the confirmed plan will typically have the requisite "close nexus" to support post-confirmation jurisdiction.

For diversity jurisdiction purposes, a post-confirmation liquidating trust has the the citizenship of its trustee.

28 U.S.C. § 1927 imposes a continuing obligation on attorneys to dismiss claims that are no longer viable. The trustee and his counsel have increased costs by unreasonably multiplying these proceedings. At no time in the nearly three years that the trustee pursued the avoidance action was trustee or his counsel ever able to identify the alleged "transfers"averred to total more than $4 million. The trustee's sole support for a claimed 18% interest rate was a "hope" that a document would surface in support of that rate.

A trustee's decision to proceed to trial without having even reviewed the complaints is an abuse of his fiduciary duties as trustee of the debtors' estates.

For preclusion purposes, it makes no difference if the prior proceeding was an objection to a bankruptcy sale and the later proceeding was a non-bankruptcy RICO lawsuit against parties in interest who were involved in the sale. So long as the claims asserted by the party against whom preclusion is sought arise from the same set of operative facts, preclusion can apply.

When the bankruptcy court approved the sale despite objections from a creditor that the debtor and the debtor's bank had defrauded the creditor, that was a "determination on the merits" of the fraud claims sufficient to constitute a "final judgment" for preclusion purposes.

The court calls into question the continuing viability of its decision in Barnett (holding that preclusion doesn't bar assertion of a later RICO claim because that claim is non-core), and notes the potential impact of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Stern on this issue.

"Though it sometimes seems otherwise, not every litigant has the right to appear in federal court."

A SIPC trustee does not have standing to pursue common law claims belonging to the debtor's customers.

Following the confirmation of a plan, the scope of jurisdiction narrows because bankruptcy courts retain jurisdiction over the bankruptcy estate, which ceases to exist once the plan is confirmed. Generally, the bankruptcy court only retains jurisdiction over issues regarding the confirmed plan and any cause of action that arises post-confirmation belong to the reorganized debtor. The potential to increase recovery for beneficiaries of a post-confirmation trust cannot be sufficient, in and of itself, to establish a close nexus because it would create a broader jurisdiction than Congress intended. Even though adjudicating a matter in bankruptcy court would allow for the efficient distribution to creditors, these factors are insufficient to create subject matter jurisdiction, particularly where the debtors' plan only included a broad general retention of jurisdiction provision and failed to mention the specific claims that the debtor seeks to pursue in bankruptcy court post-confirmation. Such a general retention of jurisdiction is insufficient for this Court to retain "related to" jurisdiction.