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Johnson, John T., 1820-1875 (Sc 3699), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3699. Case file for T. T. Melburn v. John T. Johnson, U.S. District Court for the District of Kentucky, filed 26 May 1870. Petitioner Melburn, a carpenter and stair builder of Bowling Green, Kentucky, sought an accounting for transactions during his 1869-1870 partnership with Johnson, also a carpenter, of Woodburn, Kentucky, claiming that Johnson had misappropriated assets of the firm and had committed an act of insolvency by transferring land to a relative. The inquiry, conducted by Warner Underwood as Register in Bankruptcy, included depositions from …

Silencing Litigation Through Bankruptcy, Pamela Foohey, Christopher K. Odinet

Articles

Bankruptcy is being used as a tool for silencing survivors and their families. When faced with claims from multiple plaintiffs related to the same wrongful conduct that can financially or operationally crush the defendant over the long term—a phenomenon we identify as onslaught litigation—defendants harness bankruptcy’s reorganization process to draw together those who allege harm and pressure them into a swift, universal settlement. In doing so, they use the bankruptcy system to deprive survivors of their voice and the public of the truth. This Article identifies this phenomenon and argues that it is time to rein in this destructive use …

The Housing Bubble And Consumer Banruptcy (Parts Iii And Iv), David G. Carlson

Articles

During the COVID pandemic housing prices have soared. Consumers who have filed for bankruptcy are now looking at enormous realized and unrealized capital gains. This article assesses the chances that these consumer debtors can keep these gains out of the hands of their creditors. Part II of this two-part article addresses chapter 13 issues, which concern plan modification by the chapter 13 trustee to capture realized and unrealized capital gains. It also covers whether a trustee in a converted case can capture these gains. The law of the coverted chapter 7 case is spectacularly contradictory.

Modular Bankruptcy: Toward A Consumer Scheme Of Arrangement, John A. E. Pottow

Law & Economics Working Papers

The world of international bankruptcy has seen increasing use of the versatile scheme of arrangement, a form of corporate reorganization available under English law. A key feature of the scheme is its modularity, whereby a debtor can restructure only a single class of debt, such as bond indentures, without affecting other debt, such as trade. This is the opposite of chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code’s comprehensive reckoning of all financial stakeholders. This article considers a novel idea: could the scheme be transplanted into the consumer realm? It argues that it could and should. Substantial benefits of more individually …

The Housing Bubble And Consumer Bankruptcy (Parts I And Ii), David G. Carlson

Articles

During the COVID pandemic housing prices have soared. Consumers who have filed for bankruptcy are now looking at enormous realized and unrealized capital gains. This article assesses the chances that these consumer debtors can keep these gains out of the hands of their creditors. Part I of this two-part article addresses chapter 7 issues, which concern lien stripping, abandonment, and monetary exemptions. It also addresses lien stripping in chapter 13 cases. Part II will address whether a chapter 13 debtor must surrender appreciation value to the chapter 13 trustee or to a trustee in a converted chapter 7 case.

Due Process Discontents In Mass-Tort Bankruptcy, J. Maria Glover

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Two Valid Approaches For Determining Whether “Taxes” Get Priority In Bankruptcy Cases, Jonathan Fuller

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

In bankruptcies, tax status often effects whether claims are entitled to priority. Thus, debates about whether charges are penalties or taxes date back to the early twentieth century. In 1930, the Supreme Court established that courts are not bound to the characterization given to a charge by the municipality that created it. Rather, courts have a duty to consider the “real nature” and “effect” of the charge. Accordingly, different circuits have implemented different approaches to make these determinations.

This Article examines the ambiguity among circuits regarding charges’ “tax” status and resulting priority entitlement. Part I outlines In re Lorber …

The Intersection Of The Bankruptcy Courts And Ferc, Amanda Gazzo

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

In the past, the bankruptcy courts and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) have been involved in a power struggle with one another. Congress has granted bankruptcy courts exclusive authority to allow debtors to reject executory contracts in chapter 11 reorganization cases. Additionally, Congress has granted FERC authority to govern over utility entities’ filed-rates, which are sometimes contained in executory contracts. It is in this intersection, regarding executory contracts containing filed-rates, where the power struggle between the two exists.

An executory contract is a contract where both parties still have material obligations to perform under the contract. Filed-rates may …

Sales Free And Clear Of An Intellectual Property Licensee's Interests In Bankruptcy -- Looking To In Re Tempnology For Guidance, Summer Chandler

Journal Articles

Uncertainty surrounds many issues that exist at the intersection of bankruptcy law and intellectual property law. Section 363(f) of the Bankruptcy Code permits the debtor to sell assets free of a third party’s interest in such assets, provided one or more preconditions is satisfied. When a debtor rejects a license agreement pertaining to the debtor’s intellectual property, however, § 365(n) of the Bankruptcy Code allows the licensee to choose to retain its rights to use the intellectual property that was the subject of the rejected license agreement. One unsettled question is whether a debtor may sell intellectual property pursuant to …

Stakeholderism Silo Busting, Aneil Kovvali

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The fields of antitrust, bankruptcy, corporate, and securities law are undergoing tumultuous debates. On one side in each field is the dominant view that each field should focus exclusively on a specific constituency—antitrust on consumers, bankruptcy on creditors, corporate law on shareholders, and securities regulation on financial investors. On the other side is a growing insurgency that seeks to broaden the focus to a larger set of stakeholders, including workers, the environment, and political communities. But these conversations have largely proceeded in parallel, with each debate unfolding within the framework and literature of a single field. Studying these debates together …

The Purloined Debtor: Edgar Allan Poe’S Bankruptcy In Law And Letters, Erin L. Sheley, Zvi Rosen

Faculty Scholarship

This Article represents the first interdisciplinary case study of Edgar Allan Poe’s bankruptcy as an inflection point in the legal and cultural history of debt. Although Poe hardly leaps to mind for portrayals of legal procedure, much of his oeuvre reveals a terror of legal process as an interstitial principle. The anxiety around identity in Poe’s work reveals an ongoing struggle between an individual subject and two opposing yet equally degenerate legal statuses: possession and indebtedness. This opposition renders a distinct form of legal process legible in these texts: the then emerging law of bankruptcy. Poe declared bankruptcy at a …

Third-Party Releases Under The Bankruptcy Code After Purdue Pharma, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson

Articles

The biggest bankruptcy case ever (as measured by unsecured claims against a debtor-in-possession) is In re Purdue Pharma, LLC. The bankruptcy court affirmed a plan discharging the Sackler family (equity owners and often officers of Purdue) of all “derivative” claims that belonged to the debtor-in-possession. The settlement was bought for a substantial sum payable over time by the Sacklers. A debtor-in-possession is the sole owner of a derivative claim and has the power to bind all the creditors to a settlement. Under the Bankruptcy Code, a plan discharging derivative claims is confirmable. In fact, as we will, show, a great …

Bespoke, Tailored, And Off-The-Rack Bankruptcy: A Response To Professor Coordes's 'Bespoke Bankruptcy', Christopher D. Hampson

UF Law Faculty Publications

Toward the end of every semester that I teach bankruptcy, I let my students vote on which “non-traditional” insolvency regimes they would like to study, including municipal bankruptcy, sovereign bankruptcy, and financial institutions. What I am really trying to do is convey to the students that the default procedures and substantive rules in Chapters 7 and 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code do not apply to all types of enterprises.