Bank of America Bank, NA v. Waits (In Re Waits)

578 F. App'x 827

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• Decided: August 21, 2014
• Docket: 14-11408
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Bank of America appeals the district court’s affirmance of the bankruptcy court’s order allowing the debtor, Yvonne Waits, to extinguish Bank of America’s second-priority mortgage lien on Waits’ home given that the first-priority lien exceeded the home’s fair market value. This appeal thus presents the question whether section 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. § 506(d), allows a Chapter 7 debtor to “strip off’ a junior mortgage lien when the senior lien exceeds the home’s value. As Bank of America concedes, however, we are bound to affirm the district court by our decisions in In re McNeal, 735 F.3d 1263 (11th Cir.2012) and Folendore v. United States Small Bus. Admin., 862 F.2d 1537 (11th Cir.1989). See Smith v. GTE Corp., 236 F.3d 1292, 1300 n. 8 (11th Cir.2001) (“Under the well-established pri- or panel precedent rule of this Circuit, the holding of the first panel to address an issue is the law of this Circuit, thereby binding all subsequent panels unless and until the first panel’s holding is overruled by the Court sitting en banc or by the Supreme Court.”).

AFFIRMED.