In re Renne

55 F. Supp. 868, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2305
CourtDistrict Court, D. Nebraska
DecidedJuly 5, 1944
DocketNo. 3317
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 55 F. Supp. 868 (In re Renne) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nebraska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Renne, 55 F. Supp. 868, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2305 (D. Neb. 1944).

Opinion

DELEHANT, District Judge.

This case is now before the court upon the report of sale and petition to confirm, filed herein by Daniel H. McClenahan, trustee, under date of May 10, 1944 (filing 113); the petition for confirmation of sale, filed by the secured creditor, and pur-. chaser at the trustee’s sale, Katolicky Delnik, on May 15, 1944 (filing 114); the court’s order to show cause, made and given on May 15, 1944 (filing 115); and the debtor’s showing against confirmation, filed May 24, 1944 (filing 117).

There has been no curtailment or termination, for any reason, of the stay of judicial or other official proceedings in this matter. On the contrary, it has run its extreme statutory course. The proceeding was filed on April 12, 1940. Conciliation failing, amended petition was filed, and order of adjudication and reference was entered on June 7, 1940. The steps preliminary to stay (including a valid initial appraisal of real estate on June 27, 1940, at $13,800) were protracted, but were completed by November 1, 1940, on which date the court, by Judge Munger, signed the order staying proceedings for three years, which, however, was not filed until November 7, 1940. Thus, the statutory three-year stay of proceedings, judicially allowed, expired not later than November 7, 1943. Many controversies intervened, in the [870]*870course of which the debtor was adjudged to be, and yet remains, in default in the payment of rentals under the court’s effective rental orders. Finally, on October 30, 1943, the debtor filed a written request for reappraisal of his real estate, presumably in contemplation of a proposed redemption. Although he was then substantially in default in respect of his rental payments, the court allowed his request; and in the exercise of the discretion committed to it, set the cause for formal hearing on the issue of the valuation of the real estate. The hearing, after several continuances to accommodate counsel for one or both of the parties, was held in open court on December 3, 1943, upon the issue of the valúe of the real estate as well as up on other pending issues and, briefs having meanwhile been presented upon the right of the debtor to redeem in view of his then existing default in rental payments, on December 28, 1943, the court filed a memorandum and findings of fact, conclusions of law, and judgment, fixing the then fair market value of the real estate at twenty-one thousand six hundred ($21,600) dollars, and allowing the debtor until midnight February 1, 1944, as an additional period for redemption of the real estate at that valuation. (See filings 82 and 83.) Redemption having been neither made nor tendered, the secured creditor, on February 10, 1944, filed 'its petition for the appointment of a trustee and for public sale of the real estate. Order to show cause and for hearing thereon before the supervising conciliation commissioner was entered on February 16, 1944, and thereafter duly served. The commissioner held the hearing on March 3, 1944, as directed in the order, and on March 6, 1944, filed his report and recommendations; and therein, over objection in writing filed by the debtor, recommended the allowance of the secured creditor’s petition for appointment of trustee and the direction of public sale of the real estate. The debtor promptly filed an objection to the report in the form of an answer to it, and on March 20, 1944, the court set the case for hearing on March 31, 1944, upon sundry then pending issues, including the report and recommendations of the supervising conciliation commissioner, and all matters embraced therein and the pleadings underlying it, and the debtor’s answer to it. The hearing was had on the day scheduled, on which date also the court confirmed the report and recommendations, sustained the secured creditor’s petition for public sale, subject to the debtor’s statutory right to redeem therefrom, appointed Mr. Mc-Clenahan as trustee to make the sale, prescribed his bond, and directed that the sale be held at the North front door of the Court House in Nebraska City, in Otoe County, Nebraska, where the real estate is situated; that notice be published in a legal newspaper in that county for thirty days prior to the sale; that the real estate be sold free and clear of all encumbrance; and that, after the sale, the trustee forthwith file his report in this court. The trustee filed formal acceptance of his trust, gave bond, which the court approved, fixed the time of sale as May 9, 1944, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon; caused notice thereof to be published for more than thirty days next prior to the date of sale in the Nebraska Daily News-Press, a legal newspaper published at Nebraska City, Nebraska ; held the sale at the place designated by the court’s order and on the date and at the hour fixed by the trustee and specified in the notice, at which sale the real estate was sold to the secured creditor for twenty-three thousand five hundred ($23,500) dollars which is slightly less than the amount of its lien with interest to date of sale and the costs of the sale; and on May 10, 1944 (filing 113), made detailed report to the court of his proceedings as trustee and of his sale. Concluding his report, the trustee prayed, inter alia, for confirmation of the sale and for direction to him as trustee to execute a trustee’s deed of conveyance of the real estate to the purchaser, unless within ninety days from May 9, 1944, the date of sale, the debtor should redeem the real estate by the payment into court of the purchase price of twenty-three thousand five hundred ($23,500) dollars with interest at the rate of five per cent per annum from the date of sale to the date of such redemption. The other filings and pleadings upon which the issue is now made, ensued. At no point in the proceedings has any appeal been prosecuted to the Circuit Court of Appeals. The mortgage of the secured creditor was made in 1926.

The foregoing case history has been set down, to the end that it may clearly appear that the debtor has been accorded every indulgence, redemption right, and procedural advantage which may possibly be granted him under Title 11 U.S.C.A. § 203, however liberally it may be construed and applied in his favor, even in the [871]*871face of his own persistent delinquency in the payment of rentals due from him under the statutes and the court’s orders.

It may be noted that the debtor’s showing against confirmation was wholly unsupported at the hearing on confirmation by any evidence, notwithstanding the fact that the court invited the introduction of evidence before proceeding to the hearing. Therefore', allegations of fact outside the record, made in his showing must be regarded as unproved. This comment applies to his assertion in his showing that at the public sale, and before any bid was made by the secured creditor, one D. P. West offered to bid fifteen thousand ($15,-000) dollars, promptly upon which the secured creditor made a bid of twenty-two thousand five hundred ($22,500) dollars, which it increased before completion of the sale to twenty-three thousand five hundred ($23,500) dollars. This statement is wholly unestablished. But if it were true, it would have no significance. The duty of the trustee was to obtain the highest available bid for the property; and this he clearly did, even under the debtor’s factual theory.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
55 F. Supp. 868, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2305, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-renne-ned-1944.