Consumer Bankruptcy Journal Fall 2016 | Page 44

CASES IN REVIEW
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Cases in Review
August, 2016
“Cases in Review” highlights recent cases that may be of particular
interest to consumer bankruptcy practitioners. It is brought to you by
Consumer Bankruptcy Abstracts & Research (www.cbar.pro) and
the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center (www.ncbrc.org).
Adversary procedure—Effect of arbitration agreement: The courts in three cases
denied a motion to compel arbitration of the debtor's claims in an adversary
proceeding. See In re Anderson, --- B.R. ----, 2016 WL 3365480 (S.D. N.Y. June 14,
2016) (case no. 7:15-cv-4227), appeal filed, In re Anderson, Case No. 16-2496 (2nd Cir.
filed July 13, 2016) (the bankruptcy court did not clearly err in refusing to compel
arbitration in the debtor's proposed class action to recover for a credit card issuer's
alleged violation of the discharge injunction in continuing to report, as charged off,
credit card debt that had been discharged in bankruptcy); In re Ellswick, 2016 WL
3582586 (Bankr. N.D. Ala. June 24, 2016) (case no. 1:15-bk-41196; adv. proc. no.
1:15-ap-40048) (the court denied the debtor's motion to compel arbitration in an
adversary proceeding asserting that a debt collection's proof of claim violated the Fair
Debt Collection Practices Act where the creditor attached to the claim a statement of
account information required by Bankruptcy Rule 3001(c)(3)(A) for open-end and
revolving credit transactions, but the debtor contended that the underlying debt was
not open-end or revolving); In re Walker, 551 B.R. 679 (Bankr. M.D. Ga. June 17,
2016) (case no. 5:14-bk-51982; adv. proc. no. 5:16-ap-5010) (the court denied the
creditor's motion to compel arbitration of a debtor's adversary proceeding asserting
that the creditor, by repossessing the debtor's motor vehicle postpetition, committed
common-law conversion and statutory trespass to personalty, where the debtor's
claims were predicated on the assertion that the creditor's conduct violated the
automatic stay).
Authority of the court—Imposition of sanctions—On debtor’s attorney: The
bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in finding that conduct by the Chapter
11 debtor's attorney, in citing cases for a proposition that they did not support, and in
quoting selectively from the Bankruptcy Code's definition of “cash collateral,”
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44

CONSUMER BANKRUPTCY JOURNAL

Fall 2016

National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys