When faced with a recalcitrant debtor, clients sometimes move too quickly to put the debtor into an involuntary bankruptcy, especially when fraudulent transfers and other creditor avoidance attempts become apparent. But creditors considering filing or joining in the filing of an involuntary bankruptcy petition, and the attorneys that represent them, have much to deliberate before becoming involved in an involuntary bankruptcy filing.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 22, 2017, in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., that without the consent of affected creditors, bankruptcy courts may not approve "structured dismissals" providing for distributions that "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."

In a 33 page decision released March 29, 2017, Judge Sontchi of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court ruled on competing motions to dismiss the remaining claims and counterclaims in an adversary proceeding in the Affirmative Insurance bankruptcy – Adversary Proceeding Case No. 16-50425.

On March 22, 2017, the Supreme Court, in Czyzewski et al., v. Jevic Holding Corp., et al., confirmed that the Bankruptcy Code does not permit “priority skipping” in Chapter 11 structured dismissals. In doing so, the Court held that, although the Code does not explicitly provide what, if any, priority rules apply to the distribution of estate assets in a Chapter 11 structured dismissal, “[a] distribution scheme in connection with the dismissal of a Chapter 11 case cannot, without the consent of the affected parties, deviate from the basic priority rules that apply under the . . .

In a widely anticipated ruling, the Supreme Court in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. ruled that bankruptcy courts “may not approve structured dismissals that provide for distributions that do not follow ordinary priority rules without the consent of affected creditors.” In doing so, the Court rejected the Third Circuit’s ruling that the circumstances were an unusual “rare case,” justifying deviation from the ordinary priority rules.

We at the Bankruptcy Cave are not very surprised by the ruling yesterday in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. The Supreme Court in Jevic reviewed a Bankruptcy Court’s decision to approve a settlement (with a distribution of proceeds that contravened the Bankruptcy Code’s priority scheme) in conjunction with dismissing the bankruptcy case of the Chapter 11 debtor Jevic Holding Corp.

A potential threat to the Code’s priority scheme is the allowance of “structured dismissals,” which include a settlement as part of the dismissal of the chapter 11 case that would distribute estate assets in a manner that contravenes the Code’s priority rules.

This second installment of our series, “The Life Settlement Industry – Bankruptcy Issues”, will address two related issues:

(1) What type of interest (if any) does an investor-creditor have in a “life settlement” (i.e., a life insurance policy sold by the original owner to a third party for a value in excess of the policy’s cash surrender value, but less than its death benefit), and (2) How is the interest of an investor-creditor in a life settlement generally determined in a bankruptcy case?

The U.S. Supreme Court held today in a 6 to 2 decision that “structured dismissals” resolving Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings cannot deviate from the Bankruptcy Code’s priority scheme without the consent of the affected parties – which means that businesses must ensure workers receive their unpaid wages as part of any such resolution. Specifically, the Court rejected a structured dismissal that left a group of WARN Act plaintiffs without any compensation, telling employers, essentially, that they must squeeze blood from a stone to compensate their workers.

On February 27, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit joined a minority approach followed by District of Columbia Circuit: failing to turn over property after demand is not a violation of the automatic stay imposed by 11 U.S.C. § 362. WD Equipment v. Cowen (In re Cowen), No. 15-1413, — F.3d —-, 2017 WL 745596 (10th Cir. Feb. 27, 2017), opinion here.