Business Law Insolvency Law Committee

Creditor, whose security interest lapsed prepetition when debtor changed its name, was unsecured because creditor failed to timely re-perfect its interest even though it had viable options to do so. Read more

Third Circuit certifies a critical question to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court: "Under Pennsylvania law, is an e-commerce business, like Amazon, strictly liable for a defective product that was purchased on its platform from a third-party vendor, where the product was neither possessed nor owned by the e-commerce business. Read more

A creditor cannot enforce an arbitration clause in a credit card agreement in a contempt proceeding the debtor brought against the creditor for violation of the discharge injunction. Read more

The Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel recently ruled that issue preclusion was properly applied against a debtor in a nondischargeability action under §523(a)(6) based on a state court judgment notwithstanding that (1) the bankruptcy court failed to address the public policy element of issue preclusion and (2) the debtor was deprived of his opportunity to complete his appeal of the state court judgment when the chapter 7 trustee sold those appellate rights to the successor of the state court plaintiff. Read more

Owner of mortgaged property may not sue to stop foreclosure based on a claim that the trust deed was not properly assigned to the foreclosing beneficiary. Read more

Court was unwilling to expand the bank's duties to include investigating and disclosing possible fraudulent activity and found bank's nonsuit was properly granted. Read more

In calculating the deficiency amount of a judgment following a foreclosure sale, the court properly deducted from the amount due the greater of (a) the fair market value as of the date of the foreclosure sale or (b) the sale price of the property. Read more

The discovery rule does not apply to toll the statute of limitations to enforce a note payable on demand, as set forth in UCC § 3-118(b). Read more

In Richards v. PAR, Inc., 2020 WL 1451906 (7th Cir. 2020), the Seventh Circuit ruled that under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act courts must look to state law to determine whether a repossession company has a present right to possess the property at the time it was seized. Read more

Chapter 11 debtor may amend her petition to proceed under Subchapter V of the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 even when her case has been pending for over fifteen months and a proposed creditor's plan has been set for hearing. Read more