Another bankruptcy trustee catches another hapless college unaware. In Roach v. Skidmore College (In re Dunston), Bankr. S.D. Ga. (Jan 31, 2017), a trustee appears to win the next battle of “bankruptcy estates v. child’s college,” ruling that an insolvent parent who paid the college tuition of an adult child made a fraudulent transfer to the college.
As the Supreme Court recently reminded us in Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank, not all orders in bankruptcy cases are immediately appealable as a matter of right. Only those orders deemed sufficiently “final” may be appealed without leave under 28 U.S.C. § 158(a).
A recent case from the 11th Circuit illustrates the procedural perils of litigation arising from a bankruptcy case but ultimately tried in the district court. In Rosenberg v.
In a decision that surprised many, the United Stated Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (the “10th Circuit Court of Appeals”) affirmed decisions finding that a payment made on account of a first time transaction between a debtor and creditor can qualify for the ordinary course of business defense under 11 U.S.C. § 547(c)(2).
In 2012, the Fifth Circuit ruled in In re Chilton that inherited IRAs constituted retirement funds within the “plain meaning” of §522 of the Bankruptcy Code and were thus exempt from the bankruptcy estate, under § 522(d)(12) (the federal exemptions). See our prior discussion of this case here.
After Chilton, many thought the issue was settled.
Code Section 409A is, in part, a response to perceived deferred compensation abuses at companies like Enron and WorldCom. The story of Code Section 409A’s six month delay provision is inextricably tied to the Enron and WorldCom bankruptcies.
Garrison Keillor once said, “Sometimes I look reality straight in the eye and deny it.”[1] Being that the case arose in Minnesota, perhaps Circuit Judge Michael Melloy channeled Keillor, one of that state’s great humorists, when he authored the opinion in The Official Commit
Dishonest plaintiffs can make it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to successfully move for summary judgment. Indeed, a dishonest plaintiff who understands the legal landscape can easily defeat summary judgment by claiming that there exists “direct evidence” of discrimination in the form of an admission by management that the challenged employment action was motivated by discriminatory animus (e.g., “my supervisor told me he was firing me because of my age”).
Post-judgment interest is not something most lenders consider when making a loan. In fact, it is not ordinarily the subject of significant analysis even when litigation becomes necessary. Where the United States District Court is the preferred venue, however, parties easily can fall into the quandary of being stuck with the federal statutory post-judgment interest rate, which is currently less than 1% per annum.
In 1571, Parliament enacted a law, sometimes known as the Statute of 13 Elizabeth, creating one of the greatest means of creditor protection – the proscription of fraudulent transfers.