In re: MATTHEW CURTIS WITT

Summarized by Amir Shachmurove , Brown Rudnick LLP
2 years 2 months ago

Case Type:

Consumer

Case Status:

Affirmed

Citation:

23-1035 (10th Circuit, Dec 08,2023) Not Published

Tag(s):

Ruling:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (Circuit) affirmed the judgment of the circuit's Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) concluding that it lacked jurisdiction over appeals of orders of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Colorado (BC) dismissing an adversary proceeding and sanctioning plaintiff (and appellant), Noel W. Lane III (Lane), due to the untimeliness of his notice of appeal of those orders and affirming the BC's denial of his motion for the latter order's reconsideration, declining to weigh the merits due to Lane's spare briefing and baseless judicial attacks.

Procedural context:

Among the many efforts of Lane to attain relief from Matthew Curtis Witt (Witt) was an adversary proceeding brought by Lane in Witt’s bankruptcy case, which named multiple defendants, including Witt and an attorney for a third party, Torrey Livenick (Livenick). The defendants filed motions to dismiss the adversary proceeding; the BC granted those motions by order dated November 24, 2021, and a corrected order filed on January 10, 2022, and granted the motions for sanctions filed by Witt and Livenick on March 9, 2022 (Sanctions Order). On March 22, 2022, Lane filed a motion to extend the time to file a motion related to this third order, but he did not request an extension of time to appeal it. On April 6, 2022, Lane filed a motion seeking to stay the Sanctions Order until the BC held a hearing to reconsider the sanctions. On April 15, 2022, the BC denied this request. Five days later, Lane filed a notice of appeal to the BAP, identifying the order denying his motion for reconsideration as the subject of the appeal; only later, in his amended appeal brief, did Lane explicitly seek reversal of not just the sanctions order but the order dismissing his adversary proceeding. The BAP concluded that Lane’s notice of appeal was untimely as to both orders, thus leaving it without the jurisdiction to consider the matter, but affirmed that order on the motion for reconsideration on the merits because that motion had "merely rehashed arguments Lane made in opposition to the motions for sanctions." Lane timely appealed to the Circuit.

Facts:

The dispute between Lane and Witt had seemingly consumed fifteen years. During that timeframe, Lane had sought relief (unsuccessfully) from Witt, including through numerous judicial proceedings, for alleged mortgage fraud that allegedly caused Lane’s bankruptcy. This appeal arose out of Lane's latest attempt to find succor, yet again.

Judge(s):

Joel M. Carson III; Allison H. Eid; and Veronica S. Rossman

ABI Membership is required to access the full summary. Please Sign In using your ABI Member credentials. Not a Member yet? Join ABI now - it is absolutely worth it!