No Looking Back At Prepetition Judgments In 7th Circ.

Law360, New York (January 06, 2014, 2:30 PM ET) -- On Dec. 27, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the decision of two lower courts and held that a bankruptcy court could not look behind final judgments that a claimant had obtained prior to the bankruptcy filing in order to disallow her claim against the debtor.[1] The decision underscores the limiting force of collateral estoppel on a bankruptcy court’s power to issue findings in respect of prepetition events and, more generally, to invoke equity as a basis for limiting or... Read more