General Finance Corp. v. Dillin (In re Dillin)

557 F. Supp. 363, 28 B.R. 625, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19259
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Georgia
DecidedFebruary 14, 1983
DocketCiv. A. No. 182-159
StatusPublished

This text of 557 F. Supp. 363 (General Finance Corp. v. Dillin (In re Dillin)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
General Finance Corp. v. Dillin (In re Dillin), 557 F. Supp. 363, 28 B.R. 625, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19259 (S.D. Ga. 1983).

Opinion

ORDER

BOWEN, District Judge.

General Finance Corporation, appellant, filed, this appeal of the decision of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Georgia in this Truth-in-Lending action, 15 U.S.C. § 1610 et seq. That court held that the decision in Friend v. Termplan, Inc., 651 F.2d 1012 (5th Cir.1981) applied retroactively and found appellant in violation of Regulation “Z”, § 226.-6(c), 12 C.F.R. § 226.6(c). The sole issue on appeal is the propriety of the retrospective application of Friend. Appellant concedes that if Friend is retroactive it is in violation of Regulation “Z”.

Appellee Marjorie Dillin entered into a consumer credit transaction with the appellant on May 18, 1981. She then filed the underlying Truth-in-Lending action as an adversary proceeding in the court below alleging the intermingling of inconsistent state disclosure terms with the federally required disclosures. Prior to the filing of this action the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its decision in Friend on July 27, 1981. That decision held that the state term “face amount of contract” was an inconsistent state term which could not be intermingled with the federal disclosures directed under the Truth-in-Lending Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq. In light of this ruling, the court below found the appellant in violation of Regulation “Z” although the credit transaction occurred two months before the Friend decision.

Appellant argues that the Friend case should apply only prospectively. In this regard, it is noted that retroactive applicability of judicial pronouncements is the rule and they enjoy a strong presumption in favor of retroactivity in the federal courts. Simpson v. Dir., Office of Workers’ Comp. Programs, 681 F.2d 81, 84 (1st Cir.1982). Before this presumption is rebutted and a decision found to be an exception to the rule of retroactivity, a three-pronged test must be met by the proponent of prospective application. This test was delineated by the United States Supreme Court in Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971). The Court employed three separate factors in dealing with the nonretroactivity issue:

1) The decision to be applied nonretroac-tively must establish a new principle of law, either by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied, ..., or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed;
[627]*6272) The Court must weigh the merits and demerits in each case by looking to the prior history of the rule in question, its purpose and effect, and whether retrospective operation will further or retard its operation; and,
3) Whether retroactive operation would result in substantial inequitable results. Id. at 106-07, 92 S.Ct. at 355 (cits, omitted).

In the instant case, the bankruptcy court concluded that appellant did not meet the Chevron Oil criteria.

Appellant argues that it meets the first prong of Chevron Oil in that it relied upon the rulings of the district courts for the Northern District of Georgia. This argument fails in light of language found in Hamilton v. Southern Discount Co., 656 F.2d 150 (5th Cir.1981). Hamilton concerned a Truth-in-Lending action which involved assignment of homestead exemptions and the retroactive application of a dispositive case. The court noted that the retroactive decision affected, the law in the Northern District of Georgia, but did not alter any longstanding law of the Fifth Circuit. Id. at 152. This language indicates that reliance on district court decisions will not suffice to satisfy Chevron Oil’s first factor.

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557 F. Supp. 363, 28 B.R. 625, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19259, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/general-finance-corp-v-dillin-in-re-dillin-gasd-1983.