Bankruptcy

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Jerry Dean Ferguson v. West Central FS, Inc.

Case No.: 15-3093

Officials: EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Bankruptcy

Appellant bankruptcy appeal dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction

“No unsecured creditor (other than West Central, which was treated as secured at the time) objected to the most re‐ cent proposed distribution before the deadline that the bank‐ ruptcy judge set. Arguments that could have been raised ear‐ lier are forfeited on remand, but it isn’t surprising that no one objected to claims of the unsecured creditors—the estate was $149,000 short of having anything to distribute to them. Objecting to an unsecured claim would have been a futile exercise because it could not have changed the distribution. While the Bankruptcy Code and corresponding procedural rules mandate deadlines for some objections, see, e.g., Taylor v. Freeland & Kronz, 503 U.S. 638 (1992) (deadline to object to debtor’s claimed exemptions under 11 U.S.C. §522(l) and Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4003(b)), they don’t do so for objections to claims or to proposed distributions. See Schwab v. Reilly, 560 U.S. 770 (2010). A new proposal provides a new opportunity for the judge to consider objections. And no party has told us that there will be no objections.”

Appeal Dismissed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.