The case concerned debtor Robert Allen Smith’s appeal from the bankruptcy court’s dismissal of his adversary proceeding seeking to cancel IRS claims for unpaid employment taxes and § 6672 penalties tied to his law corporation RASCORP for 1987–1990. The district court affirmed the dismissal with prejudice, ruling that Smith was a responsible person who willfully failed to collect, account for, and pay over trust-fund taxes, that corporate loans to him were properly recharacterized as taxable wages, and that he was ineligible for safe-harbor relief under Section 530 or reduced rates under § 3509. The court also upheld the denial of a jury trial. Core reasoning rested on evidence that Smith restructured his practice into an S corporation using purported independent contractors, directed payments as loans to avoid withholding, and intentionally preferred other creditors over the IRS.
The case involved an appeal by Carlsmith Ball from a bankruptcy court's July 1993 Turnover Order directing funds to Western Farm Credit Bank in the Hamakua Sugar Co. bankruptcy. The district court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction after reviewing the record sua sponte. It found the July 1993 order non-final because it conditioned turnover on later findings of fact, conclusions of law, and an audit that were never properly completed or entered. The subsequent May 1994 Memorandum Opinion was deemed the final disposition but remained interlocutory without Rule 54(b) certification and proper judgment entry under bankruptcy rules, precluding appeal as of right under 28 U.S.C. § 158(a). The dismissal was without prejudice to allow curing of the jurisdictional defects.
In this bankruptcy appeal, debtor Gerald Michael Madison challenged the bankruptcy court's orders denying confirmation of his Chapter 13 plan and dismissing his voluntary petition. After the district court affirmed those orders, Madison moved for a default judgment against the United States because its responsive brief was filed one day late under local rules. The court denied the motion, holding that even a one-day delay does not warrant default when the appeal lacks merit on its face, that default is a sanction that must be proportionate to the violation, and that the court has discretion to reach the merits rather than enter judgment by default under these circumstances.
In this case, debtor Gerald Michael Madison appealed a bankruptcy court's denial of confirmation of his Chapter 13 plan and dismissal of his petition, which were based on a finding that his noncontingent, liquidated, unsecured debts exceeded the $100,000 limit under 11 U.S.C. § 109(e). Madison, an airline pilot convicted of tax evasion for failing to file returns from 1982 to 1985, faced IRS claims for unpaid taxes, interest, fraud penalties, and understatement penalties totaling over $200,000 related to his Amway business income; he listed only about $75,000 in unsecured debts in his schedules and argued the disputed additional amounts were unliquidated and excludable. The district court affirmed, holding that the IRS deficiency notices made the amounts readily ascertainable and thus liquidated regardless of any dispute or pending Tax Court proceedings, so they counted toward the eligibility cap and rendered Madison ineligible for Chapter 13 relief.
This case involved an appeal by the IRS from a bankruptcy court's orders awarding compensation to the trustee of Charley's Tour and Transportation, Inc., both as trustee commissions and as attorney's fees for services rendered to the estate, while denying other claims. The district court first addressed procedural issues, determining that the IRS's motion for reconsideration, though labeled under Bankruptcy Rule 9024, was properly treated as a Rule 9023 motion that tolled the ten-day appeal period, making the notice of appeal timely. On the merits, the court held that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in granting the compensation, as the trustee's services benefited the estate and any failures to obtain prior approvals or maintain separate accounting did not prejudice creditors or the estate. The district court therefore affirmed the bankruptcy court's August 30, 1989 judgment and its order denying reconsideration.
In United States v. Penny-Feeney, defendants Janice Penny-Feeney and Sean Feeney, indicted on federal drug and firearm charges, moved to suppress physical evidence seized from their home pursuant to a state search warrant and from a mailed package pursuant to a federal warrant, arguing lack of probable cause and false statements in the supporting affidavits. The court denied the motion to suppress after holding a Franks hearing limited to the affiant officer's statements about using a FLIR thermal imaging device. The core reasoning was that the affidavits established probable cause through detailed tips from multiple anonymous and known informants describing an indoor marijuana-growing operation, which were sufficiently corroborated by the officer's independent observations of the residence, vehicles, associates, and utility usage, and that the FLIR-related statements were neither knowingly false nor made in reckless disregard of the truth.