Fifth Circuit Resurrects Fraud Suit Based on Removal to Bankruptcy Court

 In a very convoluted case, a plaintiff learned that removal to Bankruptcy Court can result in a do-over of adverse state court rulings.  Cohen v. Gilmore (Matter of Alabama & Dunlavy), Case No. 19-20152 (5th Cir. 12/15/20).  While the Rooker-Feldman doctrine prohibits a federal court from re-examining findings in an unrelated state court case, it does not grant similar protections in a removed action for the reason that the removed action is a continuation of the original case, just with a different presiding court.

What Happened (In Brief)

The facts of the case are very complicated. Here is an overly simplified summary. Alabama & Dunlavy owned some real property in Houston.  A trust controlled by Cohen was the 80% limited partner of Alabama & Dunlavy (A & D). In 2008, the Great Recession hit and the debt matured. Dilick controlled the general partner of A & D and also controlled the remaining limited partnership interest. Abercrombie was a developer. Abercrombie and Dilick approached the trustee of Cohen's trust about selling the property for $16.7 million. The trustee said yes because the partnership would make a profit. However, Abercrombie and Dilick failed to disclose that HEB was interested in signing a ground lease which would greatly increase the value of the property.

Abercrombie signed the ground lease with HEB under an entity named TAFI that had yet to be formed. Dilick then caused A & D to sell the property to TAFI for $13.5 million.  Shortly after acquiring the property     TAFI took out a loan for $19.9 million against the property. Various people got money, including  HEB's director of real estate. 

Cohen sued Abercrombie and TAFI among others. The state court granted Abercrombie and TAFI's motion for summary judgment after it excluded most of Cohen's summary judgment evidence.  The summary judgment apparently was never severed out of the case and remained interlocutory.   Several years later in 2015, A & D filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Regions Bank, which was another defendant, removed the case to Bankruptcy Court. The case was referred to the U.S. District Court. The District Court entered an agreed final judgment on February 7, 2019 among the remaining parties.  Abercrombie and TAFI never participated in the District Court litigation. Abercrombie and his lawyer both died. The property was sold to a third party. 

The Issue Arrives at the Fifth Circuit

Cohen then appealed to the Fifth Circuit. So, what was the Fifth Circuit doing reviewing a summary judgment granted by a state court? Although the District Court never addressed the Abercrombie and TAFI claims, they were still part of the case.

 In this circuit, when a case is removed from state court to federal court, the federal court takes the case as it finds it and treats the state court rulings as its own. . . . Since the Fifth Circuit has eschewed legal formalities and treated cases like this one as reviewable even if the district court provided little discussion of the state court decision, this case is ready for appellate review.

Opinion, p. 7. 

What A Difference A Court Makes

Where the change in forum really made a difference was in the Fifth Circuit's review of the State District Court's ruling on the motion for summary judgment. In Texas State Court, rulings on summary judgment evidence can be very informal. In this case, the State Court signed an order which granted or denied various evidentiary objections without explanation. This is not adequate in federal court. 

Cohen contends that the state trial court abused its discretion in granting several evidentiary objections in TAFI’s and Abercrombie’s favor. We agree. The grant of these objections improperly excluded important evidence from consideration. To start, the state trial court offered no explanation as to why it granted the objections. It simply checked boxes on a form saying that the objections were sustained. Since a trial court can abuse its discretion by failing to explain the reasons for excluding evidence, the lack of a reasoned explanation weighs in favor of overturning the objections.  Courts also typically consider evidence unless the objecting party can show that it could not be reduced to an admissible form at trial.

Opinion, pp. 8-9.  

This passage illustrates a remarkable difference between the state and federal courts. In my experience, state courts rarely explain their rulings. In the unusual cases where a motion for summary judgment is taken under advisement, the typical ruling from the court is a one sentence letter stating that the motion is granted or denied. Evidentiary objections are disposed of with a simple granted or denied.

Because the Court considered it an abuse of discretion to exclude evidence without stating a reason, it considered the summary judgment evidence. Because the Court examined the summary judgment evidence, it found that there were fact issues. Because the Court found that there were fact issues, it reversed the summary judgment.  As a result, seven years and one month after the summary judgment was granted, and after both the defendant and his lawyer had passed away, the summary judgment was reversed.

Practice Tips

The obvious practice tip for a party receiving an unexplained and possibly unconsidered ruling from a state court is to get the case to federal court before the judgment is final. This won't always be possible. If the claims on which summary judgment were granted were the only claims in the case, the judgment would have been final prior to bankruptcy. Similarly, filing bankruptcy after a state court has ruled but before it has entered its order is unlikely to provide any relief. However, in a complicated suit with lots of parties and claims, a terrible, horrible ruling might face a stricter review in federal court as opposed to being rubber stamped in state court.

The practice point for the party better the terrible, horrible ruling (or the wonderful, well-thought out decision depending on where you sit) is to get the ruling severed into its own case so it can become final. While I don't know what happened (any counsel is no longer around to explain), what probably occurred was that the defendants got their take-nothing ruling and assumed the case was over. Unfortunately, it was not.   

On a final note, this case just smelled bad and that may have affected the ruling.