Adamson v. Adamson (In Re Adamson)

334 B.R. 1, 2005 Bankr. LEXIS 2369, 2005 WL 3257463
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedJuly 6, 2005
Docket18-14415
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 334 B.R. 1 (Adamson v. Adamson (In Re Adamson)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Adamson v. Adamson (In Re Adamson), 334 B.R. 1, 2005 Bankr. LEXIS 2369, 2005 WL 3257463 (Mass. 2005).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

JOAN N. FEENEY, Bankruptcy Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Several matters are before the Court: 1) the Adversary Complaint filed by Sandra Singer (“Singer”); 2) the Motion to Dismiss under Fed. R. Bankr.P. 7012(b) filed by Century 21 Treon Realty and Investments Inc., Evanthia Treon, Peter Costa and Andrea Nagy (the “non-debtor defendants”); and 3) the Request for Emergency Hearing filed by Mary Adamson (the “Debtor”) pursuant to which the Debtor requests “sanctions be placed on Sandra Singer forbidding any further filings in this Court against me, Mary Adamson, and 46 Halsey Road, Hyde Park, MA.” The Debtor also requested that Singer be ordered to stay away from her new residence, 133 Cornell Street, 1st Floor, Ros-lindale, MA. 1

The issues presented by these pleadings include whether Singer, who asserts that she holds a claim against the Debtor, which this Court has described as an unliq-uidated, contingent, and disputed unsecured claim, can proceed with a complaint which includes allegations that the Debtor is not entitled to a discharge under 11 U.S.C. § 727 and that her claim is nondis-chargeable under § 523(a); whether Singer’s complaint should be dismissed because she stated “plaintiff does not consent at this time to entry of final order or judgment by the bankruptcy judge which are not in plaintiffs favor;” whether the Debt- or is entitled to the protective order she requests with respect to discovery by Singer; and whether this Court has jurisdiction over the non-debtor defendants.

For the reasons set forth below, the Court shall grant the Debtor’s Motion for a Protective Order and shall enter an order enjoining Singer from seeking any form of discovery from the Debtor and from contacting the Debtor either in person or in writing until further order of the Court., The Court also shall grant the non-debtor defendants’ Motion to Dismiss because this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Singer’s claims against them. Further, the Court shall continue generally all remaining matters in this adversary proceeding until such time as it receives a certified copy of a final order showing that the decision of the Land Court either has been reversed or affirmed by an appellate court.

II. FACTS

A. Background

The facts pertinent to the resolution of the above issues are not in dispute and have been set forth in pleadings filed by Singer in the Debtor’s bankruptcy case, as well as in prior memoranda issued by this Court. See In re Adamson, 312 B.R. 16 (Bankr.D.Mass.2004). The Court takes ju *3 dicial notice that Singer has filed numerous pleadings in the Debtor’s bankruptcy case and is the only party in interest contesting the Debtor’s discharge or the dis-chargeability of any debt. Indeed, the Chapter 7 Trustee filed a “Report of No Distribution” on February 19, 2005, stating that, after diligent inquiry, “there is no nonexempt property available for distribution to creditors.”

The Debtor filed a voluntary Chapter 13 petition on May 19, 2004. On Schedules I and J-Current Income and Expenditures of Individual Debtor(s), she disclosed that her expenses exceeded her income by approximately $500 per month. In her Chapter 13 Plan filed on June 2, 2004, she proposed to pay creditors through the liquidation of her home located at 46 Halsey Road, Hyde Park, Massachusetts (the “Property”). Prior to the filing of the Debtor’s bankruptcy petition, Singer had sued the Debtor in the Massachusetts Land Court, Department of the Trial Court, 2 seeking to compel the Debtor to sell the Property to her, as “Singer alleged Adamson had agreed to do,” see Singer v. Adamson, No. 292128, 2003 WL 23641985 at *1 (Mass.Land Ct. Dec. 24, 2003), and had obtained a lis pendens. Although the Land Court dismissed Singer’s complaint, stating that “after examining the complaint in the light most favorable to Singer, and giving full consideration to the applicable statutory and decisional law, that no binding contract ever was formed,” id. at *1 and that “[t]he facts alleged in the complaint fail, as matter of law, to show the eieation of a binding contract, even if all those alleged facts were to be believed,” id. at *2, it refused to dissolve the lis pendens.

On January 1, 2005, approximately six months after filing a Chapter 13 petition, the Debtor moved to convert her Chapter 13 case to a case under Chapter 7. The Court granted the Debtor’s motion two days later. Prior to the conversion of her case to Chapter 7, Federal National Mortgage Association (“FNMA”) had filed a Motion for Relief from the Automatic Stay and for Leave to Foreclose Mortgage with respect to the Debtor’s Property. On February 9, 2005, the Court granted FNMA’s relief from the automatic stay imposed by 11 U.S.C. § 362(a). Approximately 10 weeks later, the Debtor filed a notice with the Court stating that the foreclosure sale was scheduled for April 29, 2005.

From the pleadings, which will be discussed below, there is no dispute that the foreclosure sale was conducted on April 29, 2005, and that the Property has been sold to a third party. The Debtor no longer resides at the Property.

In In re Adamson, this Court addressed issues raised by the Debtor’s Motion for Order Authorizing Private Sale of Estate Property Free and Clear of Liens (the “Sale Motion”), through which the Debtor sought an order permitting her to sell her right, title and interest in the Property to Patrick and Maureen Oser for the sum of $260,000, free and clear of liens, claims and encumbrances, pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, as well as Singer’s Opposition to the Sale Motion, which she supplemented several times. In *4 Adamson, this Court noted that Singer asserted the following:

that the Debtor filed her bankruptcy petition in bad faith; that the Debtor is “ineligible for relief under Title 11 or any bankruptcy law;” that Adamson and her attorney “have engaged in malicious abuse of process in the filing of the bankruptcy petition in this case and this motion [the Sale Motion];” and that she holds a secured claim by virtue of her lis pendens (“[t]he creditors [sic] claim for money damages is an unsecured claim. The creditors [sic] judicially endorsed lis pendens is a secured claim.”).

312 B.R. at 17-18 (footnote omitted). In a footnote, the Court further noted that “Singer also stated that ‘Adamson [is] a person fully able to pay her creditors but who has chosen not to, has filed her petition and motion for the improper ulterior motive of seeking to maliciously prevent this creditor from having the house, which house this creditor has a lis pendens on and Adamson is contractually and otherwise required to sell to this creditor.’ ” Id. at 18 n. 2.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
334 B.R. 1, 2005 Bankr. LEXIS 2369, 2005 WL 3257463, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/adamson-v-adamson-in-re-adamson-mab-2005.