Appellate Relief From Interlocutory Bankruptcy Court Abstention and Remand Orders: A Reason for Change

When parties in bankruptcy court are unhappy with a decision made by the court to either abstain from a case or remand it to a state court, they may want to appeal the decision. However, the rules about when and how they can appeal these decisions are unclear and can be frustrating. This is especially true because bankruptcy cases often involve multiple state law claims, and allowing appeals of these decisions could overwhelm the appellate courts. So, even though parties might want to appeal these decisions, there may not be a good reason to allow them to do so. In bankruptcy cases, some rulings cannot be appealed, while others can. Orders denying permissive abstention and §1452(b) remand are unappealable, but orders denying or granting mandatory abstention can be appealed. However, in order to be appealed, the decision must be a final one, meaning it resolves the entire case in the bankruptcy court. If the bankruptcy court simply decides to keep the case rather than sending it back to state court or abstaining from the case, that decision is not final and cannot be appealed. In bankruptcy court, a final order is one that ends the case and leaves nothing else for the court to do. A decision on where a claim should be heard, in federal bankruptcy court or state court, is not a final order because it doesn’t end the case. However, there is an exception called the collateral order doctrine, which allows some non-final orders to be appealed if they meet certain requirements. If a bankruptcy court denies a request to send a case back to a state court or decides to hear the case itself, it’s not something that can be immediately appealed. The Supreme Court has said that these kinds of orders aren’t important enough to be considered final and can be reviewed later. So, even if someone disagrees with the decision, they’ll just have to wait until the whole case is finished before they can appeal. In the case In re Charter Co., the court made a decision about whether the lenders could appeal a bankruptcy court’s order about managing money. The court said they couldn’t appeal because it wasn’t a final decision and there wouldn’t be a lot of harm if they had to wait for a regular appeal. Another court said the same thing in a similar case called Matter of Rupp & Bowman Co. Hope that helps! If a bankruptcy case involves a legal question that’s really important and there’s a good reason why people might disagree about it, the party involved can try to get permission to appeal the decision before the case is over. But it’s not easy – they have to convince the trial court to agree that the question is important enough and that it would really help to have the appeal decided now. Even if the trial court agrees, the party still has to ask the appeals court for permission to appeal. They have to show that there’s something really special about the case that makes it important to decide the appeal now. It’s not enough for them to just disagree with the trial court’s decision. The decision to refuse to send a case back to a lower court or to abstain from making a decision doesn’t involve any major legal questions that would change the outcome of the case. There’s no significant disagreement among courts on this issue, and even if there were, it wouldn’t really end the dispute between the parties. So, it’s unlikely that a court would decide to send the case back down or abstain from making a decision. In simpler terms, the article is saying that there’s no good reason to appeal a decision made in bankruptcy court. Even if you try to appeal, the chances of success are very low. It’s better to win your case in the bankruptcy court instead of trying to appeal later. And even if you don’t appeal right away, you can still appeal later on. This article was written by Hala A. Sandridge, who is a lawyer specializing in appeals. The Appellate Practice and Advocacy Section is sharing information to help lawyers be better at their jobs and serve the public. They want to make sure justice is served and the study of law keeps getting better.

Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/appellate-relief-from-interlocutory-bankruptcy-court-abstention-and-remand-orders-a-reason-for-cha/