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Judge Jacqueline P. Cox - Opinions

Description Date Issued
In re Robert M. Kowalski

18 B 09130
The Federal Deposit Insurance Company objected to proofs of claim filed by attorneys who represented the Debtor’s spouse in a dissolution of marriage case. The state court awarded fees to the attorneys in connection with establishing support owed to the Debtor’s former spouse and their child. The state court defined the awards to the attorneys as non-dischargeable domestic support obligations. The FDIC argued that they were not domestic support obligations entitled to priority under Section 507 because they were payable to the attorneys, not to the Debtor’s former spouse or child.
The Seventh Circuit and other courts have found attorneys’ fee awards made in connection with dissolution litigation to be in the nature of domestic support obligations, not because a state court says they are domestic support obligations, but after analyzing the language and substance of the judgments in issue, the parties’ financial circumstances and the function served by the obligation.

The FDIC’s objections were overruled. The fee obligations were held to be domestic support obligations entitled to priority under section 507 of the Bankruptcy Code.

06/29/2020
In re Marcella Marie Mance

19 B 33057
In reliance on a recent ruling in In re Wigfall, 606 B.R. 784, the court avoided the City of Chicago’s lien on the Debtor’s vehicle after finding that it was a judicial lien subject to avoidance under Section 522(f) of the Bankruptcy Code.  The City contended that it was a statutory lien which Section 522(f) did not apply to.  Its lien was authorized by statute but the City cannot immobilize and seize vehicles until it obtains quasi-judicial determinations that its ordinances have been violated.

02/06/2020
In re Edison Mission Energy, et. al

12 B 49219
The court denied Mar-Bow Value Partners’ motion for leave to reopen these jointly administered cases as an amicus to address McKinsey Recovery & Transformation’s Rule 2014 disclosures which were submitted several years ago to secure court appointment as the Debtors’ turnaround professional.  Mar-Bow contends that a fraud was committed on the court when McKinsey failed to disclose several conflicts of interests and other disqualifying information.  The court denied the requested relief, noting that Mar-Bow is too adversarial to serve as an amicus and that the United States Trustee is the best party to investigate the matters in issue.

01/16/2020
Pavletich v. Rose (In re Karen S. Rose)

18 B 21202, 19 A 00107
The Debtor Karen S. Rose was found liable to Plaintiff Steven Pavletich in state court for $250,000 on a defamation claim.  She published statements on social media that the Plaintiff cheated on his wife.  This adversary trial covered only her defense that the statements in issue were true.  The Debtor’s witnesses did not testify that the Plaintiff cheated on his wife.  They unconvincingly testified that the Plaintiff told them that while drinking in a bar.

Because the state court entered a default judgment against the Debtor for her refusal to cooperate with discovery, the issues were not actually litigated, preventing the application of collateral estoppel – issue preclusion.

Generally, default judgments cannot supply the basis for dischargeability claims.

12/19/2019
In re John W. Fliss

15 B 29567
A bank obtained a judgment in state court on a loan to two businesses that the Debtor had guaranteed.  One of the Debtor’s co-obligors arranged to have an entity he controlled buy the judgment rather than pay to have the judgment released, thereby allowing the entity to seek full payment from the Debtor.  Had the judgment been released, the Debtor would have also been released; the individual would have a right to seek contribution.

The underlying judgment was entered by confession, without litigation.  This court found that for that reason collateral estoppel, issue preclusion, did not apply and found that the individual who controlled the purchaser was its alter ego, allowing application of the merger doctrine which extinguishes a debt when the person or entity which holds a debt as owner is also an obligor on it.

The entity controlled by the individual filed a proof of claim which has been disallowed on several grounds: alter ego- merger and as a remedy for a continuing discovery violation.

12/03/2019
In re Royalty Properties, LLC

19 B 07692
The court converted the Chapter 11 case filed by Debtor Royalty Properties, LLC to Chapter 7, finding that it was filed in bad faith as a litigation tactic to delay a mortgage foreclosure case filed 10 years ago.  The debt was incurred in 2006 to purchase its main asset, a 400-acre horse farm.  No payments were ever made on the debt. The court also found that the Debtor was using its creditors’ collateral to farm and sell hemp/hemp seeds, a new business for which it had no experience, not to reorganize an existing business. The Debtor and its principals unsuccessfully sued its creditors, including the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Illinois, in state and federal courts many times before it filed for bankruptcy protection.  After the foreclosure case neared conclusion, two more lawsuits were filed against its creditors this year.

08/30/2019
In re James Thigpen

17 B 10161
The Debtor James Thigpen maintained two Social Security numbers and made false statements to obtain Supplemental Security Income ("SSI") benefits he was not entitled to.  He pleaded guilty and was convicted of embezzling money belonging to the United States.  The sentencing district judge required him to pay restitution to the government in the amount of $49,327.17 in increments of 10% of his net, monthly income.
Thigpen eventually qualified for and received Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance ("OASDI") benefits which he received for a period of time. The Social Security Administration, which administers each program under separate statutes, sought to retain 100% of his monthly OASDI benefit to satisfy the SSI overpayment debt.
Thigpen got a chapter 13 plan confirmed that provided payment of $6000 toward the restitution obligation during the plan's term.
The Court ruled that because the debts arose from separate government programs the recoupment doctrine and its exception from the automatic stay did not apply.  The Court ruled that setoff applied.  However, Bankruptcy Code Section 362(a)(7) provides that the automatic stay applies where setoff is available.  Courts have discretion to not permit setoff where it is unfair to do so, which is what the Court ruled in denying the government's motion for relief from the automatic stay to withhold 100% of Thigpen's monthly OASDI benefit to satisfy the SSI overpayment debt.

04/20/2019
Haifa Sharifeh v. Horace Fox, Jr., Trustee of the Debtor’s Bankruptcy Estate (In re Richard Sharif)

09-05868
On remand from the district court, after a trial, findings were made regarding an Intervenor's assertion that she had been denied due process when she was not served in an adversary proceeding where trust assets were found to be part of a bankruptcy estate in 2010.  The court found that the Intervenor waived her objection because she waited too long to bring it up and by participating in the litigation through her agents, her brother, Richard Sharif, the Debtor, and her attorney, who she sued for legal malpractice for not asserting certain claims in the underlying matter.

01/29/2019
Gecker v. LG Funding (In re Anthia Hill and Network Salon Services LLC)

16  B 17113, 17 A 00072
The court ruled in favor of the defendant on allegations that transfers made in satisfaction of merchant cash advance obligations were preferences or constructively fraudulent transfers.

08/15/2018
Janice Faye Hopson; Janice Faye Hopson v. Illinois Student Assistance Commission and U.S. Department of Education

15 B 43653, 16 A 206
The court denied the Debtor a discharge of her student loan debts, finding that she can maintain more than a minimal standard of living if forced to repay them.

06/22/2018
In re Debbie Pines Mansfield and Lawrence J. Mansfield; Debbie Pines Mansfield and Lawrence J. Mansfield v. America’s Wholesale Lender, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company

17 B 36587, 17 A 00594
The Debtors took out a $2,200,000 loan from America's Wholesale Lender in 2006 to purchase real estate.  They executed both a note and a mortgage in connection therewith.  They failed to make payments starting in 2008.  The lender filed a mortgage foreclosure case against them in 2009 in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.  In October, 2017 the state court entered a judgment of foreclosure in that case, ruling in favor of the lender on its motion for summary judgment, rejecting the Debtors' claim that because America's Wholesale Lender had not been incorporated before the documents were executed, the note and mortgage were null and void. The Debtors filed this chapter 11 bankruptcy case 7 weeks later on December 11, 2017.

The Debtors filed this adversary proceeding seeking to have the note and mortgage declared invalid for the same reasons asserted without success in state court.

The Lender filed a Motion to Dismiss the Adversary Proceeding which this court has granted with prejudice, applying the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and the court's authority to abstain as explained by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in In re Jepson, 816 F.3d 942 , 948 (2016).

06/08/2018
In re Jason Scott Howard

17 B 25141
In this case, the City of Chicago refused to turn over the debtor’s vehicle unless their claim was paid in full. The City’s claim was treated as unsecured in the confirmed plan; the City did not object to this treatment of its claim. The Debtor filed a motion to modify his confirmed plan to pay the City of Chicago in full as a compromise to get the City to release the vehicle. In this opinion, the court denied the motion to modify the plan and sanctioned the City for violating the automatic stay in violation of Thompson v. GMAC.The court ruled that the City did not have a possessory lien as provided for in its ordinance because the ordinance was inconsistent with Illinois law.

04/19/2018
In re Frank A. Santilli and Monica D. Santilli; Preferred Capital Funding of Illinois, LLC. v Frank Santilli

16 B 14713 Consolidated with 16 B 23020, 16 A 00707
The court found several debts nondischargeable where the debtor, an attorney, lied about and failed to repay clients' loans from settlement proceeds.

03/12/2018
In re Lombard Public Facilities Corporation

17 B 22517
The movants sought dismissal of this Chapter 11 case for cause alleging that the Debtor is an instrumentality of the Village of Lombard, and as such is not allowed to seek bankruptcy relief as a governmental unit.  The Debtor was incorporated by Lombard to construct and operate a hotel and convention center which has been managed under the Westin flag for several years. The court denied the motions to dismiss finding that Lombard did not control the Debtor and that the Debtor did not perform municipal functions, relying in part on an Illinois Appellate Court ruling denying the Debtor’s efforts seeking a tax exemption as a governmental body.

12/18/2017
In re Demetrius Adger

17 B 20163
The issue was whether Debtor Adger's filing of a Chapter 13 case on July 5, 2017 at 6:26 p.m., rather than before 5 p.m. when the Cook County Clerk's office closed was filed timely  for purposes of allowing the debtor to treat a tax purchaser's claim over the life of a Chapter 13 plan.   The court analyzed  the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, the Illinois Supreme Court's Electronic Filing Standards and Principles and our local Bankruptcy Court's Administrative Procedures for CM/ECF  that govern electronic filing. Generally those Rules and Standards provide that a document filed on the due date before midnight is timely filed.  The Amended Motion to Modify Automatic Stay was denied.

09/20/2017
Christine F. Hernandez v. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

09 B 49112, 17 A 00280
The Debtor sued Wells Fargo Home Mortgage alleging that it violated the discharge injunction when it sent her three informational letters concerning its lien. The court found that the creditor did no more than what Bankruptcy Code Section 524(j) allows mortgagees to do post-discharge: communicate with debtors to maintain periodic payments on residential property in lieu of the creditor pursuing in rem relief to enforce the lien.

09/13/2017
In re Erin V. McDougal; Tim Grover and Katherine Grover v. Erin V. McDougal

16 B 8776, 16 A 00356
Debtor Erin V. McDougal defaulted on rent payments under an apartment lease.  Her lessor asked that the debt owed be found to be non-dischargeable due to representations made by the Debtor alleged to be false. During the period the representations were being made the Debtor paid $35,000 to the lessor in an effort to satisfy her obligations.  The court found (1) that the representations were promises to become current, not false representations made with intent to deceive and  (2) that her failure to become current  was a contract breach because the statements could not be held to be false representations where the creditor can not prove that a debtor never intended to make payments.

08/02/2017
In re EHC, LCC

15 B 40866
In this ruling the court sanctioned an attorney pursuant to Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9011 for pursuing a bankruptcy case solely to delay a foreclosure case, to avoid the lawful appointment of a receiver and to needlessly increase a secured creditor's legal fees and costs.

04/25/2017
In re Richard Sharif

09 B 5868
The Court sanctioned Attorney Maurice James Salem and his clients Ragda Sharifeh and Haifa Sharifeh for violating Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9011 for filing several motions and pleadings in an attempt to gain access to trust assets held to be property of the Debtor's bankruptcy estate in 2010.  The 2010 Order where the trust assets were found to be the Debtor's alter ego and thus property of the bankruptcy estate as of February 24, 2009 was affirmed by the District Court in 2012.  The Seventh Circuit affirmed the District Court in 2015 after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit's earlier ruling limiting the bankruptcy court's jurisdiction.
Mr. Salem has been ordered to pay a $20,000 fine. He and his clients have been ordered to never again file pleadings in this bankruptcy case and its related adversary proceedings.
Should Mr. Salem need to file something in these cases in the future he has to first obtain leave of this Court to do so.

02/16/2017
In re 1016 West Hollywood, LLC. In re The 800 Building

14 B 02696, 15 B 17314
The court found that it has post-confirmation jurisdiction to enforce and interpret its confirmation order in a chapter 11 case  where all transactions described therein have not been completed and a final decree has yet to be entered.

01/18/2017

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