Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed suit against his employer, Bob Evans, alleging employment discrimination in violation of federal and Missouri law. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Bob Evans. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in applying judicial estoppel to bar plaintiff's claims where, pursuant to the New Hampshire v. Maine factors, plaintiff took inconsistent positions between his bankruptcy case and this case; the bankruptcy court, by discharging plaintiff's unsecured debts, adopted the position that his discrimination claims did not exist; and plaintiff could have derived an unfair advantage in the bankruptcy proceedings by concealing his claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Jones v. Bob Evans Farms, Inc." on Justia Law

O&S challenged the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel's (BAP) dismissal of its appeal after the bankruptcy court confirmed a reorganization plan proposed by O&S. The BAP concluded that O&S did not have standing to challenge the bankruptcy court’s order confirming its proposed plan. The court found that, in light of the strong policy favoring finality in bankruptcy proceedings, the language in the confirmed plan was not sufficient to reserve O&S’s right to appeal from the plan confirmation or to place the bankruptcy court and creditors on notice that O&S would seek such relief. Accordingly, the court concluded that the BAP correctly held that O&S failed to carry its burden to demonstrate standing. The court affirmed the judgment. View "O&S Trucking, Inc. v. Mercedes Benz Fin. Serv." on Justia Law

Creditor appealed the bankruptcy court's order granting debtor's motion to avoid its judgment lien. Creditor concedes that its judgment lien attached to the residence, but argues that its judgment lien did not fix upon debtor’s tenant by the entirety property interest in the residence, because debtor did not have an interest to which its judgment lien could fix. The panel concluded that, under Missouri law, even if it conceded that the residence was not subject to Creditor’s lien and that the lien was therefore unenforceable, the panel would still find that an unenforceable judgment lien arose, so that it is possible for debtor to avoid it under 11 U.S.C. 522(f). Further, even if the docketing and registration of Creditor’s judgment lien did not attach an enforceable judgment lien to the residence, at a minimum, the judgment lien creates a cloud on the title to the residence. View "CRP Holdings A-1, LLC v. O'Sullivan" on Justia Law

Debtor appealed the bankruptcy court's order denying her discharge for failure to list a number of assets and prepetition transfers in her bankruptcy schedules pursuant to 11 U.S.C. 727(a)(4)(A). The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel affirmed the bankruptcy court's judgment, concluding that the bankruptcy court did not clearly err in finding that debtor's omissions were made with reckless indifference to the truth and therefore were intentionally false and fraudulent. In this case, debtor, a bookkeeper for several businesses and nonprofits, failed to truthfully answer specific questions necessary to complete a picture of her assets and liabilities. View "Home Service Oil Co. v. Cecil" on Justia Law

Debtor appealed the bankruptcy court's decision finding that some, but not all, of her student loan obligations to NCT are nondischargeable. The court concluded that the bankruptcy court did not clearly err in its fact findings for the time period analyzed. In this case, the time period the bankruptcy court used was the most recent time period for which it had complete income and expense figures. Finally, the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in denying debtor's motion to make additional findings and amended the judgment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Conway v. National Collegiate Trust" on Justia Law

Debtor appealed the bankruptcy court's order overruling her objection to the chapter 7 trustee's final report and denying her motion to compel the chapter 7 trustee to abandon $16,893.44 he had received from the Ruth E. Thompson Revocable Trust. The court agreed with the bankruptcy court that pursuant to paragraph 5.3.4 of the trust agreement, debtor's interest in the Trust was fully alienable by her on the petition date, and her interest in the Trust was not excluded from the bankruptcy estate under 11 U.S.C. 541(c)(2). Accordingly, the court affirmed the bankruptcy court's order. View "Thompson-Rossbach v. Doeling" on Justia Law

Creditor appealed from the bankruptcy court's order denying his motion to dismiss debtor's bankruptcy petition. The bankruptcy court ruled that the Bankruptcy Code merely requires the debtor to establish that she had received a briefing regarding credit counseling in compliance with 11 U.S.C. 109(h)(1). The bankruptcy appellate panel concluded that the bankruptcy court properly found that the certificate of counseling was sufficient to meet the statutory requirements and denied creditor's contention to the contrary because it was based on an erroneous interpretation of law. The panel lacked jurisdiction related to creditor's appeal of an order granting debtor's motion to sell certain real property and the panel declined to address creditor's remaining issues because they were not presented to the bankruptcy court in the first instance or are unrelated to the issue on appeal. Accordingly, the panel affirmed the judgment. View "Curtis v. Segraves" on Justia Law

Debtors appealed the bankruptcy court's confirming of their amended Chapter 13 plan. The court held that when a Chapter 13 debtor’s treatment of a creditor under one subsection of 11 U.S.C. 1322(b) falls within the contours of another subsection of that statute, all standards of both subsections must be satisfied. Specifically, the court examined whether the maintenance of regular payments for unsecured non-priority student loan debt by debtors in this case, while they paid substantially less to other unsecured non-priority debt, satisfied the requirements of Bankruptcy Code 1322(b)(1) and (b)(10). The court held that those requirements were not met. The court agreed with the bankruptcy court’s holding that debtors’ plan was unfairly discriminatory. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Jordahl, Jr. v. Burrell" on Justia Law

This case arose out of the Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding filed by debtor. Debtor appealed from the bankruptcy court's order sustaining the bankruptcy trustee’s objection to her claim of an exemption in certain real property and limiting the exemption to $155,675.00. The court concluded that debtor did not acquire the property in which she claims her homestead exemption within the 1215-day period preceding the filing of the petition pursuant to 11 U.S.C. 522(p)(1)(A), thus limiting her homestead exemption to $155,675.00. In this case, the trustee presented evidence from three sources to the effect that instead of recording the deed immediately after execution, Donn Bruess, debtor's father, left it with his attorney until he determined whether to go forward with that conveyance. Upon consideration of the trustee’s evidence, the bankruptcy court found that Donn Bruess had not surrendered control of the deed with the intent to irrevocably convey the property. The court concluded that the bankruptcy court's findings were not clearly erroneous and affirmed the judgment. View "Bruess v. Dietz" on Justia Law

Knight is a licensed attorney, and the charges against him stem from his representation of a Barber in a bankruptcy proceeding, in 2008-2010. Knight was convicted of conspiracy to commit bankruptcy fraud, 18 U.S.C. 371 and 157; aiding and abetting bankruptcy fraud; aiding and abetting the making of a false statement in relation to a bankruptcy case; and five counts of aiding and abetting money laundering, 18 U.S.C. 1957 and 2. The district court granted Knight a new trial on the conspiracy, bankruptcy fraud, and money laundering counts, granted his motion for judgment of acquittal on the false statement count, and conditionally granted him a new trial on the false statement count in the event of reversal on appeal. The Eighth Circuit reversed the acquittal on the false statement charge, but affirmed the decision to grant Knight a new trial on all counts of conviction, noting evidence that Knight and Barber used the IOLTA to keep Barber's creditors from learning that he had money available and evidence concerning a sham entity that was used to divert money to Barber's own pocket. View "United States v. Knight" on Justia Law