In Re Alicia Marie Richards

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ALICIA MARIE RICHARDS, Case No. 8:23-cv-01558-SB

Appellant,

v. ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE RE RICHARD A. MARSHACK et al., SANCTIONS

Appellees.

Debtor Alicia Marie Richards challenged two bankruptcy court orders granting the trustee’s motion to pay certain claims as community claims and denying her objections to those claims.1 In its order consolidating this appeal, the Court ordered Richards to file her opening brief by October 11, 2024 and Appellees to file their brief 30 days after service of her brief. Dkt. No. 20. Richards’s opening brief was entered on the docket on October 21, 2024. Dkt. No. 21. After Appellees failed to file their brief, the Court ordered them to show cause, in writing, by December 13, 2024, why they failed to file. Dkt. No. 22. No response to the order to show cause (OSC) has been filed. Three appellees are listed on the docket in this appeal: (1) Richard A. Marshack, the trustee of Richards’s bankruptcy estate; (2) Todd A. MacDowell, counsel for Ford Motor Credit Company LLC; and (3) Capital One. It is not clear whether MacDowell or Capital One received the orders in this appeal.2 Nor is it

1 In a separate order, the Court dismissed this appeal for lack of standing. 2 The contact information on the docket was provided by Richards in her notice of appeal and is the contact information listed on the claims register in the bankruptcy proceeding. Case No. 8:23-cv-01799, Dkt. No. 1 at 2. No email address was included for MacDowell, and the information for Capital One does not include any clear whether they are proper parties to this appeal, as they did not file oppositions to Richards’s objections in the bankruptcy proceeding and did not appear at the hearing on the objections. See In re Campbell, 336 B.R. 430, 434 n. 5 (B.A.P. 9th Cir. 2005) (noting it was not clear whether creditor was proper party to appeal where it did not participate in bankruptcy court proceedings on debtors’ objections to claims). The Court therefore discharges the OSC as to counsel for Ford and Capital One. However, all orders in this appeal have been sent to D. Edward Hays, counsel for the trustee, at the email address on the docket, ehays@marshackhays.com. Hays has used the same email address in Richards’s other appeals, where he has filed briefing and complied with the Court’s orders. See, e.g., In re Alicia Marie Richards, No. 8:23-cv-01973-SB (C.D. Cal.), Dkt. No. 21. Despite receiving email notification of the Court’s OSC, he has failed to explain his failure to file a brief in this appeal. Counsel for the trustee is ordered to show cause, in writing, by March 28, 2025 why he failed to file a brief in this appeal and why he failed to respond to the prior OSC. The trustee and his counsel are warned that the failure to do so may result in monetary and/or other appropriate sanctions against both.

Date: March 18, 2025 ___________________________ Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr. United States District Judge

individual addressee. See id. at 2 (listing address for Capital One as “American Infosource as Agent”).