Scott v. Bailey
- Summarized by David Treacy , U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of Kentucky
- 3 months 3 weeks ago
- Case Type:
- Consumer
- Case Status:
- Affirmed
- Citation:
- 24-2809 (3rd Circuit, Nov 04,2025) Not Published
- Tag(s):
-
- Ruling:
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed a district court's order dismissing an amended complaint, sua sponte, based on judicial estoppel as the plaintiff/appellant did not disclose the lawsuit in contemporaneously-filed bankruptcy schedules. The dismissal order revisited the district court's earlier decision to deny dismissal of the initial complaint on this basis. The district court did not abuse its discretion in applying the doctrine based on Third Circuit authority. And the appellant did not show the sua sponte decision to reconsider caused him prejudice.
- Procedural context:
- The original and amended complaints in this case asserted the appellees defamed the appellant. The appellant also filed two separate employment discrimination lawsuits against his employer over which a different district court judge presided. That judge dismissed the appellant's cases based on judicial estoppel as he also failed to identify those lawsuits in his bankruptcy schedules. The Third Circuit affirmed that decision in August 2024. The district court order at issue in this appeal was issued in September 2024, meaning the district court in this case revisited its prior judicial estoppel ruling in light of the Third Circuit's opinion affirming the dismissal of the other cases on judicial estoppel grounds.
- Facts:
- Appellant Norman Scott sued his former manager, Appellee Whitney Bailey, former supervisor, Appellee Donald Glover, and his former employer, Appellee The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, for defamation in March 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Appellees moved to dismiss the lawsuit based on, inter alia, a failure to state a claim and judicial estoppel, as Appellant did not disclose the lawsuit in his pro se chapter 7 bankruptcy schedules filed in February 2023 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. Appellant obtained a discharge of over $600,000 in debt in that bankruptcy case. The district court declined to dismiss the complaint based on judicial estoppel as the bankruptcy court recently had reopened the bankruptcy case to allow Appellant to amend his schedules. Instead, the district court granted the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and allowed Appellant to file an amended complaint. After Appellant amended his pleading, Appellees filed a second motion to dismiss on merits grounds. Sua sponte, the district court reconsidered the judicial estoppel argument and dismissed the amended complaint on that basis. Appellant appealed the dismissal order to the Third Circuit.
- Judge(s):
- BIBAS, CHUNG, and BOVE
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