• Case No.   17-1017

Issue: Whether a debtor committed willful and malicious injury within the meaning of 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(6) by circumventing a charging order and transferring funds from a family LLC to his tax preparer for the preparation of state and federal returns for himself and his juridical entities.

RULING: The debtor injured plaintiff by transferring funds to his accountant for the preparation of his personal tax returns and the injury was "willful and malicious" within the Fifth Circuit's definition of the term.  The debtor knew of plaintiff's charging order and injury to the plaintiff was substantially certain to result from the debtor's action.

• Case No. 17-1017

Issue: Whether plaintiff carried its burden of proof to show entitlement under Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9023 to reconsideration of Summary Judgment denial.
 
Ruling:  Plaintiff failed to show that there was new, previously unavailable evidence to support its motion or that the court had made a manifest error of law in granting defendant's motion for summary judgment.

• Case No.   15-10938

Issue: Whether a debtor is eligible for relief for a stay pending appeal of an adverse order.
 
RULING: Debtor failed to carry her burden of proof for entitlement to a stay pending appeal.
 

• Case No. 14-11278
• Adv. No. 15-1026

Issues: (1) Whether debtor committed a false representation or actual fraud within the meaning of 11 U.S.C. §523(a)(2)(A) when he allegedly misrepresented his personal and company finances to his accountant. (2) Whether the debtor's discharge should be denied for failure to maintain adequate books and records and because of his inability to explain the loss of assets that could have been used to pay his creditors.

RULING: Plaintiff failed to carry its burden of proving that Janney's obligation should be excepted from discharge on the basis of false representations or actual fraud within the meaning of 11 U.S.C. §523(a)(2)(A).  Plaintiff's reliance on debtor was not justifiable given the "red flags" the plaintiff knew through its business relationship with debtor.  Additionally, plaintiff to prove that any assets the debtor transferred prepetition and cannot account for actually belonged to the debtor.  The evidence established that the assets belonged to debtor's businesses and were not available to satisfy his personal liabilities.

• Case No. 15-10938

Issue: Whether a party may file an amended motion seeking the same relief once a court has ruled on the party's request.

RULING: A party may not file an amended motion seeking the same relief once a cour has ruled on its request.  Further, matters not presented to the trial court cannot be added to the record after the court has ruled.

• Case No.   08-10756

ISSUE:  Whether the debtors and their daughters, Pamela Alonso and Cynthia O'Neal, are vexatious litigants under 28 U,S,C, §1651 and 11 U.S.C. §105 and therefore should be enjoined from future filings and monetarily sanctioned?

RULING:  Since the debtors filed this case in May 2008, the record of the case, as well as an adversary proceeding withdrawn to the USDC, are replete with examples of the debtors, and their daughters', relentless efforts to thwart the trustee's administration of their estate and that of the consolidated debtor, RedPen Properties, LLC.  This effort consisted of voluminous unnecessary and duplicative pleadings, dishonest filings, misleading motions containing unsubstantiated allegations and contrived arguments, including personal attacks on the trustee.  The evidence in the record of this case and the USDC case supports a conclusion that the factors for enjoining vexatious filers from future filings set out in Baum v. Blue Moon Ventures, LLC, 513 F.3d 181 (5th Cir. 2008) have been met.  The court held that the debtors, Alonso and O'Neal were vexatious litigants and bad faith filers and that a pre-filing injunction against them, and anyone acting on their behalf, with regard to filings in this case or filing future cases in this court without prior court permission, was warranted.  The court also concluded that the  abusive and harassing actions of the debtors alone in connection with certain motions were so egregious that $49,432 in monetary sanctions under 11 U.S.C. §105 was appropriate.

• Case No.   14-11505
• Adv. No.     15-1023

• Case No.   12-10407

ISSUE: Whether a debtor is entitled to a Louisiana state homestead exemption on the whole marital residence - or only on her one-half interest - when her non-filing spouse, who received a credit of the full exemption toward the purchase price, buys the entire piece of community property from the bankruptcy estate?

RULING: The court concluded that the Louisiana homestead exemption provided for in La. R.S. 20:1 entitled the debtor to one exemption of $35,000 on the entire piece of property that was the marital residence, and became wholly property of the estate upon the debtor's filing, not just on the debtor's undivided one-half interest in the property. Moreover, the debtor received that whole $35,000 exemption as an appropriate credit towards her non-filing spouse's purchase price for the property. Any other approach would multiply the debtor's homestead exemption beyond the sum that Louisiana law allows for a single tract of community-owned property. Thus, the debtor was not entitled to any further amounts from the estate to satisfy her state homestead exemption.

• Case No.   11-10354

ISSUE: Whether the debtors' payment on a prescribed claim through their chapter 13 plan renounced prescription.

RULING: The parties agreed that the claim of GC III, LLC and its agent Quantum3 Group, LLC ("GC") was prescribed under Louisiana's liberative prescriptive period of three years for an action on an open account. La. C.C. art. 3494. GC argued that the debtors' payments to it as an unsecured creditor under the chapter 13 plan either expressly or tacitly renounced prescription. The court noted that relevant case law required GC to prove that the renunciation was "clear, direct and absolute." Huckabee v. Sunshine Homes, Inc., 647 So.2d 409, 413 (La. App. 2d Cir. 1994). Finding that GC had not met this burden, the court held that prescription was not renounced and disallowed GC's claim as prescribed.

• Case No.   12-11241
• Adv. No.     13-1040

ISSUES: Whether the actions of the debtor Melvin Hampton in connection with an accident in which his car collided with plaintiff John Johnson's car willfully and maliciously caused the injuries Johnson sustained in the accident; whether Johnson's theory of recovery in his state court suit against Hampton judicially estopped him from pursuing a judgment of non-dischargeability under 11 U.S.C. §523(a)(6).

RULING: The court concluded that Johnson did not prove that Hampton was drag racing before the accident that injured Johnson, nor that Hampton's actions in causing the accident otherwise willfully and maliciously resulted in Johnson's injuries under the provisions of section 523(a)(6); the court also concluded that Johnson's state court judgment arose from a claim of negligence on Hampton's part which claim was inconsistent with Johnson's position in bankruptcy court that Hampton willfully and maliciously injured him and thus judicially estopped Johnson from asserting his claim under section 523(a)(6). 

• Case No.   12-11811
• Adv. No.     13-1022

Soundra Temple Johnson, et al. v. Woodlands Development, LLC, et al., Adv. No. 13-1022. ISSUES: Whether the court should dismiss or abstain from considering the plaintiffs/debtors' amended complaint for declaratory judgement regarding ownership insurance proceeds, objecting to claims and seeking to avoid preferential transfers; whether the court should dismiss or abstain from considering the cross-claim filed by Regions Bank seeking a ranking of claims to the insurance proceeds.

RULING: The court concluded that: (1) using the standard for ruling on motions for failure to state a claim under Fed. R. Bankr. Proc. 7012(b) enunciated in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) and In re Katrina Canal Breaches Litigation, 495 F.3d 191 (5th Cir. 2007), the claims of the plaintiffs' amended complaint were sufficient to "state a claim that is plausible on its face;" (2) that there were no grounds for mandatory abstention under 28 U.S.C. §1334(c)(2) or for permissive abstention under 28 U.S.C. §1334(c)(1); but (3) that the pronouncements of Stern v. Marshall, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2594, 180 L.Ed.2d 475 (2011), as explained by the Fifth Circuit in In re BP RE, L.P., 735 F.3d 303 (5th Cir. 2013), regarding the bankruptcy court's authority to issue a final ruling on the claims of the plaintiffs' amended complaint raised sufficient concerns that the court required the parties to consent to bankruptcy court jurisdiction or move to withdraw the reference of the case to the United States District Court.

• Case No.   02-10076

In re J. Co. Medical Management, Inc., Case No. 02-10076 ISSUES: Whether the court can appoint a tax preparer/accountant nunc pro tunc more than eleven years post-petition under 11 U.S.C. §327 so that post-petition services would be an allowable administrative expense; whether attorney performing pre-petition legal services for the debtor is entitled to a wage claim under 11 U.S.C. §507; whether the same attorney is entitled to an administrative expense under 11 U.S.C. §503(b)(3)(C) and (b)(4) for criminal defense of debtor's principal; and whether tax preparer or attorney were entitled to any claims against the estate due to untimeliness of the filing of their claims, their lack of disinterestedness and failure to prove that their services were necessary to and benefitted the estate.

RULING: The court concluded that: (a) there were no exceptional circumstances existing that would allow nunc pro tunc appointment of tax preparer/accountant after extraordinary delay in seeking appointment; (b) the attorney for the debtor was not entitled to a wage claim under 11 U.S.C. §507 due to lack of supporting documentation and untimely filing of claim under 11 U.S.C. §726(a); (c) that attorney was not entitled to an administrative expense under 11 U.S.C. §503(b)(3)(C) and (b)(4) because his services related to the criminal defense of the debtor's principal and were not related to the criminal prosecution of the debtor; and (d) the claims of both the tax preparer and the attorney were inexcusably untimely, the claimants were not disinterested but were instead closely connected to the debtor. the debtor's principal and affiliates of the debtor and there was insufficient evidence that the services of the tax preparer and the attorney were necessary to and for the benefit of the debtor and not merely or also for the benefit of other related parties.