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Interpreting The Bankruptcy Code: An Empirical Study Of The Supreme Court's Bankruptcy Decisions, Karen Gebbia

Publications

The Supreme Court has issued forty-eight bankruptcy decisionsin the two decades since the Bankruptcy Code became law. In at least thirty of these cases, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to mediate conflicts among the circuit courts of appeal.

This article studies the Court's interpretive methods. Studies of lower court bankruptcy decisions might also provide valuable information concerning interpretive method, particularly if such studies examine whether conflicting decisions arise from conflicting interpretive methods, whether appellate courts and bankruptcy courts apply divergent interpretive methods, and whether textual or non-textual decisions are more frequently overruled by higher courts or legislative action.

Bank Of America National Trust & Savings Ass'n V. 203 North Lasalle Street Partnership: A Different Interpretation, Karen Gebbia

Publications

The story of 203 North LaSalle Street is archetypical of real estate investments. A real estate investment partnership that had no other significant assets owned a substantial part of the 203 North LaSalle Street building, just as thousands of other real estate partnerships own thousands of other downtown office buildings across the United States. Like hundreds of other single asset real estate partnerships, the 203 North LaSalle Street Partnership fell upon financial hard times and filed a chapter 11 reorganization case to prevent the mortgagee from foreclosing on the building. As in many such cases, the financially decimated partners sought …