The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Sunbeam Products, Inc. v. Chicago American Manufacturing, LLC,¹ recently issued a decision that holds—contrary to the only other court of appeals that has addressed the issue—that rejection of a trademark licensing agreement by a debtor-licensor does not terminate the agreement and that a trademark licensee can thus continue using the license after rejection.

The Fourth Circuit’s Lubrizol Decision

In pari delicto is a common law defense against liability in circumstances where the culpability of the plaintiff is at least as great as the culpability of the defendant. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania clarified Pennsylvania law on this on February 16, 2010, in Official Comm. Of Unsecured Creditors of Allegheny Health, Educ. & Research Found. v.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that, following the confirmation of a foreclosure sale in Illinois, the only remedy available to a borrower under 15 U.S.C. § 1635 was damages, and therefore the one-year limitation period under 15 U.S.C. § 1640(e) applied and his claims were barred despite the fact that he provided rescission notices within three years of the loan closing, and despite the fact that the parties engaged in back-and-forth communications after the demands were first sent.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a bank’s relationship with a software services company, under which the software services company required its customers to use the bank for the depositary services ancillary to the software, did not violate anti-tying provisions of the federal Bank Holding Company Act, at 12 U.S.C. § 1972.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a bank’s lawsuit against the husband of a debtor who had filed for bankruptcy did not violate the co-debtor stay because the husband’s credit card debts were not a consumer debt for which the debtor was personally liable.

Filing a proof of claim with a bankruptcy court representing a debt subject to an expired state law limitations period does not violate the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) under an opinion released yesterday from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Under the ruling, in Owens v. LVNV, the Seventh Circuit joins the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in rejecting the Eleventh Circuit’s holding under Crawford v. LVNV that such proofs of claim violate the FDCPA.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a lender that is on inquiry notice that its security interest in the collateral had been fraudulently conveyed may lose its secured status.

However, the Court also held that the lender's negligence here did not amount to "purposeful avoidance of the truth" sufficient to justify application of the doctrine of equitable subordination, which allows a bankruptcy court to reduce the priority of a claim in bankruptcy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a secured creditor must file its proof of claim no later than the 90-day deadline under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002(c) in order to receive distributions under a Chapter 13 plan of reorganization.

A copy of the opinion is available here:  Link to Opinion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently reversed a bankruptcy court’s ruling that a lender failed to perfect its security interest because its UCC financing statement failed to provide sufficient indication of the secured collateral under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a mortgagee’s failure to take a deficiency judgment against a borrower who filed bankruptcy in a concluded state foreclosure action precluded the mortgagee from making a deficiency claim in the borrower’s bankruptcy proceeding.

A copy of the opinion in BMO Harris Bank N.A. v. Anderson is available at: Link to Opinion.