On May 4, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank, No. 14-116, a case which deals with issues of finality and appealability of orders in bankruptcy proceedings. In a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court held that a bankruptcy court’s order denying confirmation of a Chapter 13 debtor’s proposed repayment plan is not a final order and thus is not immediately appealable.

BACKGROUND

When an individual contemplates filing for bankruptcy protection, he or she has a few options. One is to file a Chapter 7 case, and another is to file a Chapter 13 case. In a Chapter 7, all of a debtor’s non-exempt assets are transferred to a bankruptcy estate to be liquidated and distributed to creditors. In a Chapter 13, the debtor retains assets and makes payments to creditors according to a court-approved plan.

Upon the filing of a bankruptcy petition, an automatic stay goes into effect which provides a debtor with immediate protection from collection efforts by creditors. But the automatic stay is not without limitations.

People are generally familiar with the concept that a party’s right to appeal applies to those orders that are “final.” A “final” order is one that resolves or disposes of the disputes between the parties. While an interlocutory order may be appealable at the discretion of the appellate court, the aggrieved party has no absolute right to appeal an order that is not “final.”

There has been much discussion in the media in the past year about the massive amount of professional fees that have been wracked up during the City of Detroit's Chapter 9 bankruptcy. There is always great interest - and debate - about such fees due to the nature of the process: insolvent individuals or companies with no place left to turn file for bankruptcy, creditors take a "haircut" on their claims, and the lawyers get paid. Or so the story goes. As with any complex process, though, there is plenty of nuance that gets lost in the wash, and often is more to the story.

Most bankruptcy lawyers are familiar with section 1111(b) and its attempt to rectify a perceived unfairness resulting from the ruling in In re Pine Gate Assocs., Ltd., Case No. B75-4345A, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17366 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 14, 1976). In Pinegate, the creditor’s collateral had depreciated as the result of a cyclical market fluctuation.

What began as a garden variety bankruptcy claims objection has ended with a sharply-worded, sixty-page opinion, in which the Sixth Circuit’s Bankruptcy Appellate Panel ( “BAP”) affirmed a bankruptcy court’s $200,000 sanctions order entered against the creditor’s attorney.

“Bad news comes in threes.” “Third time’s the charm.” “Three strikes and you’re out.”

One of these three adages may come to characterize the outcome of a case of significant import argued before the US Supreme Court this week. The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wellness Int’l Network, Ltd. v. Sharif. The case is the third in a trilogy including Stern v. Marshall and Executive Benefits Ins. Agency v. Arkison, which examine the scope of the constitutional exercise of judicial power by bankruptcy courts.

Under section 365(f)(1), a debtor is permitted to assume and assign leases and executory contracts notwithstanding contractual limitations or “applicable law” that restricts such assignment. However, that broad general authorization begins with the limiting language, “except as provided in subsection (b) and (c) of this section….”

In ordinary civil litigation, appellate review is generally limited to “final judgments,” in order to prevent the wastefulness of appeals on rulings that are not truly dispositive of the case. That notion becomes somewhat more difficult in a bankruptcy, where there are often multiple litigations within the umbrella bankruptcy case. But does that mean that notions of finality should be different in the bankruptcy context? Not so, at least according to the Sixth Circuit.