Prof. Ralph Brubaker and Prof. Ken Klee spoke on “Not Again! Will Bankruptcy Courts Survive the Supreme Court’s Second Look At Stern v. Marshall?” However, their panel could have been titled, “Does the Bankruptcy World Need Yet Another Talk on Stern v. Marshall?” Fortunately the answer was yes.
The History of Summary/Plenary
Prof. Brubaker discussed the history of bankruptcy adjudication going back “before the beginning” to English bankruptcy practice. He said that the summary/plenary distinction began with English bankruptcy commissioners. Commissioners operating under the supervision of the Lord Chancellor could administer bankruptcy estates and make certain determinations of law and fact, such as adjudicating claims. Their power was by the concept of in rem so that they could decide any question regarding property in the possession of the assignee, who was the equivalent of a trustee. If the assignee had to sue someone to recover property, that proceeding had to be brought in the appropriate superior court.
In the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, Congress expressly allowed non-Article III bankruptcy commissioners to adjudicate all summary proceedings in a manner similar to English practice. This principle became even more firmly in place in the Bankruptcy Act of 1898. The jurisdictional statute expressly stated that there was no plenary jurisdiction except for some matters such as preferences and fraudulent conveyances. The 1898 Act introduced non-Article III officers similar to commissioners designated as Bankruptcy Referees. The full extent of the referee’s authority was not defined with perfect clarity resulting in multiple Supreme Court decisions. The Supreme Court invoked the summary/plenary distinction finding that plenary matters had to be brought before an Article III judge, while bankruptcy referees could determine summary matters and their decisions would be given the same effect as one from an Article III judge.
When Congress reformed the bankruptcy laws in 1978, it expanded the scope of bankruptcy jurisdiction. Jurisdiction was now extended to any proceeding related to the Bankruptcy case. All of that very broad jurisdiction was to be exercised by non-Article III bankruptcy judges subject to appellate review. The Marathon decision struck down the 1978 jurisdictional scheme as unconstitutional. However, the Court in Marathon never said where the constitutional line was. Indeed, there was not even a majority opinion in the case. Nevertheless, he said that “the most obvious explanation for why the court found the Code unconstitutional was that the Marathon case would have been a plenary suit which should have been tried in an Article III court.
Congress reacted to Marathon by enacting the core/non-core distinction which Prof. Brubaker equated to a codification of the summary/plenary distinction. He noted that in Granfinanciera, Justice Brennan, who authored the Marathon plurality, equated the Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury with plenary suits under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 that could only be tried in an Article III court. He said that Congress could not take away the right to jury trial by classifying a matter as a core proceeding. Prof. Brubaker described this as constitutionalizing the summary/plenary distinction. He noted that in Stern v. Marshall, Chief Justice Roberts relied heavily on Seventh Amendment decisions to establish the right to decision by an Article III judge.
Prof. Klee said that Stern v. Marshall was not a politically decided case. Rather, it was about fundamental power, whether non-Article III courts should be limited or whether their authority should be based on pragmatism.
Prof. Klee had two good lines that don’t otherwise fit with this post. He said “Vicki was well endowed in her own right but not financially.” He also said that as a result of Pierce Marshall’s attorneys decision to file a proof of claim “history was made.”
Power vs. Jurisdiction
Prof. Klee was quick to point out that Stern v. Marshall was not about jurisdiction. Jurisdiction was vested in the district court. The Bankruptcy Judge can decide matters if they are delegated by the District Court and that delegation is constitutional. As a result, the case was not about jurisdiction, but who could exercise that jurisdiction. He said this distinction was important to the question of whether parties could consent to decision by a Bankruptcy Judge. “If it’s just lack of power, you can consent. If it is lack of subject matter jurisdiction, you can’t consent.”
Public Rights
Chief Justice Roberts placed a lot of emphasis on the early case of Murray’s Lessee which held that if an action could have been decided by the English courts of law, equity or admiralty, they could not be assigned to non-Article III tribunals in the absence of a public rights exception.
According to Prof. Klee, the public rights exception in bankruptcy is probably limited to cases in which the United States is a party. (Although not pointed out by the speakers, the Chrysler and GM cases would be good examples of the public rights exception). However, he made the interesting comment that Justice Scalia’s concurrence showed that in his heart, he does not want to overturn the bankruptcy system because it is a long-established system. This was similar to his ruling in the BFP case in which he relied on the long-established practice of state foreclosure laws. Thus, for Justice Scalia, historical practice is a way to get to authority. Prof. Klee recommended perusing Blackstone’s Commentaries to look for historical practice.
Claims and Consent
Under Stern, Bankruptcy Courts can still decide proofs of claim. Filing a claim establishes a claim to the bankruptcy res and constitutes consent to adjudication of the claim itself. However, filing of a proof of claim does not constitute consent to anything beyond that. In Stern, Pierce Marshall’s filing of a proof of claim was not consent to determination of Vicki’s counterclaim. As the Supreme Court pointed out, Pierce really had no choice about filing a proof of claim, so he did not consent to anything beyond determination of the claim.
Prof. Brubaker said that filing a claim is only consent to determining the claim because that is a natural consequence of filing a claim.
Prof. Klee argued that “The current court is re-writing history. Under the Act, we had jurisdiction by ambush.” In Gardener v. New Jersey, the court held that the state’s filing of a proof of claim waived sovereign immunity. The Court also held that filing a proof of claim waived the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial. Prof Brubaker rejected the notion of jurisdiction by ambush as consent. “Jurisdiction by ambush means they are not consenting to anything.”
Supplemental Jurisdiction
Prof. Brubaker would analyze Stern v. Marshall as a case on supplemental jurisdiction. “The Stern majority never acknowledged supplemental jurisdiction, but signed on to it.” However, he said that the nexus for supplemental jurisdiction is “tightly circumscribed.” He said it is only available to the extent necessary to dispose of independent matters already before the court.
Things That Can Be Done or Not
Prof. Klee said that there are still many things Bankruptcy Judges can do. They can employ counsel, approve compensation (which drew applause from the audience) and administer the estate. However, he noted that according to Blackstone, English commissioners could not enter the discharge. They could certify the discharge to the Chancellor but could not enter it. He added, “If bankruptcy judges cannot enter discharges, we are in a new world.”
The professors had a vigorous discussion on whether bankruptcy judges could enter money judgments in nondischargeability cases. Prof. Klee thought it was permissible so long as the debtor was the defendant. On the other hand, Prof. Brubaker said that “historically courts have considered nondischargeability as a separate claim.” Prof. Klee responded that the debtor was res to which Prof. Bubaker said “nah.”
They also discussed whether Bankruptcy Courts could follow the report and recommendation procedure in core proceedings where the Bankruptcy Court lacked constitutional power to enter a final judgment. Prof. Klee pointed out that there were now three categories of cases: core proceedings where the Bankruptcy Court can constitutionally enter a final judgment, noncore proceedings in which the Bankruptcy Court may submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law and core proceedings in which the Bankruptcy Court lacks power to enter a final judgment. Prof. Brubaker said that if Congress had authorized courts to enter a final judgment, it implicitly had authorized them to take the lesser action of submitting proposed findings and conclusions. Prof. Klee, while initially taking the position that submitting proposed findings and conclusions was not authorized noted that the best retort to his own position was Stern v. Marshall in which the Supreme Court “didn’t bat an eye” when the District Court treated the Bankruptcy Court’s ruling as proposed findings and conclusions.
So What Are We Left With?
My question after listening to this discussion is whether the Bankruptcy Court has any broader power now than it did under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 or than was possessed by English bankruptcy commissioners. I am more sanguine than the professors. I think that will be too difficult to turn back the clock on thirty years of expansive power exercised by Bankruptcy Judges. To the extent that historical practice or specialized expertise are grounds for vesting power in a non-Article III tribunal, there is a case for vesting more power in the Bankruptcy Courts than they enjoyed prior to 1979. Bankruptcy Courts have developed specialized expertise in dealing with the consequences of financial failure. They have developed into our national courts of commerce. While most historians would scoff at thirty years as a mere blip in time, it is significant enough that it will be difficult to roll back the clock.
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