The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently reversed a ruling that disallowed an unsecured creditor’s claim filed in a California bankruptcy court based on the forum state’s statute of limitations.

In so ruling, the Ninth Circuit held that, although courts typically apply the forum state’s statute of limitations if the contract is silent on the issue, exceptional circumstances warranted the application of a longer statute of limitations here, because the creditor had no option but to enforce its claim in the forum based on where the bankruptcy petition was filed.

As we have noted in another post, Non-Final Finality: Does One Interlocutory Issue Resolved in a Bankruptcy Court Order Render All Issues Addressed in the Order Non-Appealable?, not all orders in bankruptcy cases are immediately appealable as a matter of right. Only those orders deemed sufficiently “final” may be appealed without additional court authorization.

In a highly anticipated decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 22, 2017, in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., No. 15-649, 2017 BL 89680 (U.S. Mar. 22, 2017), that, without the consent of affected creditors, bankruptcy courts may not approve "structured dismissals" providing for distributions which "deviate from the basic priority rules that apply under the primary mechanisms the [Bankruptcy] Code establishes for final distributions of estate value in business bankruptcies."

The Supreme Court of Indiana recently confirmed a mortgagee’s ability to seek an in rem judgment against property for which there was an outstanding lien balance after the borrowers obtained a discharge of their Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

In so ruling, the Court distinguished the difference between an in rem and in personam judgment, and rejected the borrowers’ unsupported argument that the debt was paid in full by the time the mortgagee initiated foreclosure proceedings against the borrowers.

In Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding, 580 U.S. __(2017), decided on March 22, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, without the consent of impaired creditors, a bankruptcy court cannot approve a "structured dismissal" that provides for distributions deviating from the ordinary priority scheme of the Bankruptcy Code. The ruling reverses the decisions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, and the U.S.

Kansas-based Payless, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Eastern District of Missouri (St. Louis) on Tuesday afternoon, under docket # 17-42257.

On March 23, 2017, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida (the “Court”) issued an opinion in the chapter 15 case of Banco Cruzeiro do Sul, S.A., a Brazilian bank (“BCSUL” or the “Debtor”), holding, among other things, that section 1521(a)(7) of the Bankruptcy Code does not prevent foreign representatives from commencing state law fraudulent conveyance actions. See Laspro Consultores LTDA v. Alinia Corp. (In re Massa Falida Do Banco Cruzeiro Do Sul S.A.), No. 14-22974-BKC-LMI, Adv. Pro. No. 16-01315-LMI, 2017 WL 1102814 (Bankr. S.D. Fla.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Can a bankruptcy court order the “structured dismissal” of a Chapter 11 case if such dismissal would alter the ordinary priority rules for creditor distributions under the Bankruptcy Code? In Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 580 U.S. (March 22, 2017) (Jevic), the Supreme Court recently determined that such an order cannot issue without consent from all affected creditors even in “rare cases in which courts could find sufficient reasons to disregard priority.”

We are all very used to (and very bored of) the on-going debate of what actually constitutes “the media” or “legitimate news.” In most instances, this sort of debate pits exclusive, Columbia-educated, “proper” journalists against those who have large on-line followings and eschew any association with a Dickensian-era newspaper.