Practice and Procedure

9th Circuit Mar 23, 2020

Ninth Circuit Creates a Legal Fiction to Uphold Recovery of an Unauthorized Transfer

Ninth Circuit assumed that transferred property must remain property of the estate after conversion from ‘13’ to ‘7’ before the chapter 7 trustee can avoid an unauthorized transfer under Section 549.

Lawyer for Madoff Customer Slapped with $57,347 Discovery Sanction

Calling the Madoff trustee a liar and basing a discovery motion on facts known to be false resulted in sanctions under Rule 37(a)(5)(B).
9th Circuit Mar 16, 2020

Ninth Circuit BAP Applies Taggart to Violations of the Automatic Stay

Taggart left open the question of whether the ‘no objectively reasonable basis’ standard for discharge violations also applies to contempt of the automatic stay.
9th Circuit Mar 6, 2020

Ninth Circuit Takes a Hard Line Against Waiving Discharge Inadvertently

The Ninth Circuit may be backing off from Ybarra, a case that waives discharge for attorneys’ fees if the debtor ‘returns to the fray.’

HAVEN Act May Be Employed to Reduce Payments Under a Confirmed Chapter 13 Plan

Judge Shefferly writes a complicated opinion on the retroactivity of the HAVEN Act to cases filed prior to enactment.
11th Circuit Feb 25, 2020

Eleventh Circuit Opinion Shows Taggart’s Effect on Discharge Contempt Disputes

Taggart allows a court to deny a contempt motion without deciding whether the creditor’s action actually violated the discharge injunction.