- Citation:
- Carroll, Jr. v. Abide, No. 14-31230 (5th Cir. June 11, 2015)
- Tag(s):
-
- Ruling:
- The Barton doctrine does not apply to claims arising from actions that a bankruptcy trustee takes pursuant to orders from a federal district court (as opposed to orders from a bankruptcy court). The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court's judgment dismissing the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and remanded case to the district court to consider the trustee's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.
- Procedural context:
- Appeal from the district court's order dismissing litigation against a bankruptcy trustee for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction based on the Barton doctrine; the plaintiffs did not seek leave of the bankruptcy court before bringing their tort action against the trustee appointed by that court.
- Facts:
- Former debtors and their daughter sued the trustee for the debtors and a debtor LLC that they owned alleging constitutional violations arising from the bankruptcy trustee's allegedly unlawful seizure and access of a computer whose ownership was disputed in prior litigation between the parties. The earlier lawsuit, also before a federal district court, was about the validity of certain pre-petition transfers made by the individual debtors and their LLC to their children. During that case, the district court entered an order requiring the individual debtors and their children to deliver all records, computer disks, etc. for the debtor LLC to the trustee. The trustee took custody of a computer that was listed on the LLC's schedule of assets but that the parents asserted was their personal computer. The parents filed a motion in district court requesting the computer's release; the district court deferred ruling on the motion so that the Trustee could have the computer examined by a forensic expert. Over a year later, the district court granted summary judgment to the trustee on the disputed issue of ownership of movable property and directed the trustee to return the computer to the parent debtors.
- Judge(s):
- Owen, Reavley, Higginson
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