Andrews v. McCarron

Summarized by Joel Levitin , Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
11 years 2 weeks ago

Citation:

No. 14-1422-bk (2nd Cir. February 11, 2015) (Summary Order)

Tag(s):

Ruling:

In Summary Order, with no precedential effect, the Court held that individual debtors were collaterally estopped in the context of non-dischargeablity litigation in bankruptcy from relitigating whether their conduct underlying a judgment obtained against them in a different court prior to bankruptcy constituted fraud. Thus, the judgment was not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Procedural context:

Appeal to Court of Appeals from decision of District Court affirming Bankruptcy Court order.

Facts:

Creditors sued individuals in the Central District of California for defrauding them by a false representation, among other things. Following a jury trial, the creditors obtained a judgment in their favor. The individuals filed bankruptcy petitions, and the creditors sought a determination that their judgment was not subject to discharge based on the collateral estoppel effect of the prior fraud conclusion. The individual debtors asserted that there should be no such collateral estoppel effect due to the different context and arguably different standard.

Judge(s):

Barrington D. Parker, Peter W. Hall, and Debra Ann Livingston, Circuit Judges

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