Email from Steve Fix:
Dear All:
This program, dismissing complaints under Rule 12, is anything but boring. The bar association has put two top notch (and quite humorous) speakers together on the panel. The Honorable Barry Russell and Scott Bovitz will take us through a neat power point presentation on taking apart an opponent’s complaint, strategies whether you should bring a motion to dismiss and all of the fun that goes into these motions. Read more…
More stuff I didn’t know. Yikes, this has been around since 2001?
I finally got around to writing my case summary of Brace. I forgot that Judge Lafferty wrote the opinion for the BAP a while back. I can’t wait to hear his comments at the 9th Circuit Review on January 23, 2021 (click here to join the cdcbaa and see the program for free). One thing the court commented on that I didn’t know is that there is a new “form of title,” new since 2001 I guess. The Supreme Court said:
In addition, the rule that form of title controls at death was a key motivation for the Legislature’s 2000 enactment of Assembly Bill No. 2913, which created a new form of title: community property with a right of survivorship. (… Civ. Code, § 682.1.) This form of ownership combines the tax benefits of holding community property at the death of one spouse — a stepped-up basis in the full value of the community property — with the right of survivorship in a joint tenancy.
Civil Code Section 682.1 says: Read more…
In re Gardens Regional Hospital and Medical Center, Inc. 975 F.3d 926 (9th Cir. September, 2020)
Historically, “[s]etoff allowed a reduction of [the] plaintiff’s claim by the amount of a liquidated claim of the plaintiff to the defendant; recoupment allowed a defendant to assert a claim arising out of the same transaction as the plaintiff’s claim.” “The defining characteristic of setoff—as opposed to recoupment—is that, in a setoff, ‘the mutual debt and claim . . . are generally those arising from different transactions.’” [emphasis in original] “[R]ecoupment is not the adjustment of separate mutual debts but the process of defining the amount owed under a single claim.” “[R]ecoupment is in the nature of a right to reduce the amount of a claim, and does not involve establishing the existence of independent obligations.” But “courts should apply the recoupment doctrine in bankruptcy cases only when ‘it would . . . be inequitable for the debtor to enjoy the benefits of that transaction without meeting its obligations.’”
Email from Steve Fix:
Dear All:
Sorry for the late notice. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kwan (who worked at the Justice Department representing the IRS prior to taking the bench), John Tedford IV (at Danning Gill and who wrote a fascinating article on this issue for the ABI) and John Faucher (who spent a decade at the Justice Department on tax matters) have put together a good program. It is called “Late-Filed Returns and How To Discharge Them” The program looks at the problem – Section 523(a) – what constitutes a return, how BAPCAP has complicated the analysis, the IRS’ position on late filed returns, how to figure out if your client has the problem and what to do about it. Of course the panel will also look at how the Franchise Tax Board and its position can complicate the analysis.
Why attend this program? Easy. The intersection of bankruptcy and tax is complicated. This is probably the area of the highest legal malpractice for bankruptcy attorneys. We have to know the subject well enough to at least know the issues, the questions, and hopefully a lot more. For those of you who think the subject is dry, first, it is not but second, the program is only hour long.
I hope you can join us. Here are the particulars: Read more…
I discovered that the Library of Congress has archived my old blog BankruptcyProf. It’s kind of fun looking at these posts again. And motivates me to pay more attention here. You can access the old blogs here.
Discharge Injunction Violations: In re Marino Says Fine Print Doesn’t Save the Creditor
November 17, 2020, 12 noon – 1 p.m.
Special low price- $15! 1 Hour MCLE; 1 Legal Specialization in Bankruptcy Law
Speakers: Christopher Burke, Leonard Gumport, M. Jonathan Hayes.
Marino deals with letters from creditors to a debtor that said, in the fine print, that the debtor should ignore the letter if the debtor had received a discharge. The bankruptcy court awarded $119,000 in damages to the debtor but ruled that it had no power to award punitive damages. The BAP affirmed but sent it back to the bankruptcy court saying that it could award punitive damages for violation of the discharge injunction.
Email from Joe Boufadel:
All,
The Federal Bar Association is hosting (online only) its 17th Annual Bankruptcy Ethics Symposium on Friday, November 20, 2020, beginning at 9:00 a.m. (3 hours of legal ethics). I hope and encourage you all to attend again this year (and registration takes less than a minute to complete online). Please note there is a discounted rate for all FBA, CDCBAA and LABF members, and it’s inexpensive for non-members as well. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Click here to register online for the symposium on November 20, 2020 Click here to download the PDF event flyer.
Federal Bar Association-Los Angeles Chapter’s 17th Annual Bankruptcy Ethics Symposium
Friday, November 20, 2020
Time: 9:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Online Only (GoToMeeting)
My Daily Journal Article Small Business Chapter 11 update: Where are we eight months in? was published on October 26, 2020. You can access it here. DJ 10-26-20 SBRA 8 months in Let me know what you think.
Email from Steve Fox,
Dear All:
This Friday’s meeting is a perennial meeting. We look at selected tentative opinions of the judges who hear cases in Woodland Hills (and adding a bit of the Northern District), discuss the tentative opinions, dig in deeply into many of them to try to understand the thought process and the legal process the judges used. We have a wide variety of opinions, some consumer, some business, some litigation, some trustee issues, so there is something for everyone. There is a lot of meat in this program. Also, as a lot of different topics are covered, it is more likely than not that an issue you are working on now in one of your cases will be discussed by one of the panelists. Crucially, this is not a program where we review as many tentative opinions as possible. We cover a limited number of tentative opinions per judge so that you can listen to a somewhat in depth analysis.
The panelists are well experienced. Nicholas Gebelt heads up the panel. Robert Aronson and Sloan Youkstetter fill out the panel. They have been researching and finding a lot of good tentative opinions. Read more…
Some good articles in the Central District Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys Association (cdcbaa) latest newsletter. You can get it here.
