In re Sellers

555 B.R. 479, 2016 Bankr. LEXIS 2805, 2016 WL 4137162
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedAugust 3, 2016
DocketBky. No. 15-14723 ELF
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 555 B.R. 479 (In re Sellers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Sellers, 555 B.R. 479, 2016 Bankr. LEXIS 2805, 2016 WL 4137162 (Pa. 2016).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

ERIC L. FRANK, CHIEF U.S. BANKRUPTCY JUDGE

I. INTRODUCTION

In a bench opinion delivered on June 2, 2016,1 sustained in part and denied in part the objection to the proof of claim of Na-tionstar Mortgage, LLC (.“Nationstar”) filed by Debtor Joyce M. Sellers (“the Debtor”). In that opinion, I held:

(1) the provisions of Pennsylvania’s Loan Interest Protection Law, 41 P.S. §§ 101 et seq. (“Act 6”),1 apply to the reverse mortgage held by Na-tionstar;
(2) as a result of Nationstar’s failure to comply with the pre-foreclosure notice- requirements of Act 6, 41 P.S. § 403, the Debtor’s objection to certain legal expenses included in Na-tionstar’s proof of claim would be sustained;
(3) the Debtor was not entitled to an award of attorney’s fees under 41 P.S. § 503(a); and
(4) insofar as the Debtor’s chapter 13 plan provides for a cure of the Debt- or’s prepetition default under her mortgage and, as a result of the ruling, the court determined the amount of Nationstar’s claim for pre-petition arrears, it was unnecessary ' to determine the amount of Nations-tar’s total allowed secured claim.

Presently before the court is the Debt- or’s Motion for Reconsideration of the denial of the request for an award of attorney’s fees under 41 P.S. § 503 and the court’s decision not to determine the [481]*481amount of Nationstar’s total allowed secured claim (“the Motion”).

For the reasons set forth below, the Motion will be denied.

II. BACKGROUND

On July 2,2015, Debtor Joyce M. Sellers (“the Debtor”) filed a voluntary chapter 13 bankruptcy petition. Debtor filed her chapter 13 plan and schedules on July 28, 2015. (Doc. #’s 17,19).

The Debtor’s chapter 13 plan (“the Plan”) proposed to cure the Debtor’s pre-petition arrears and maintain the monthly mortgage payments on Nationstar’s secured claim. The Plan estimated the arrears claim to be approximately $3,000.00. Nationstar eventually filed an amended proof listing a cure amount of $13,003.04.

On February 26, 2016, the Debtor filed an objection to Nationstar’s amended proof of claim (“the Objection”). (Doc. # 40). A hearing on the Objection was held and concluded on March 22, 2016. The parties submitted memoranda in support of then-positions, the last of which was filed on April 29, 2016.

The court issued an oral decision on the merits of the Objection on June 2, 2016. The Debtor was largely successful in challenging the cure amount in Nationstar’s proof of claim. The proof of claim for arrears was allowed in the amount of $4,811.44. The oral ruling was memorialized by a written order, docketed the same day (“the Order”). (Doc. # 56).

Two (2) aspects of the ruling on the Objection are relevant to the pending Motion.

First, although I sustained the Debtor’s objection to $2,653.73 in attorney’s fees and costs that were assessed in connection with a prepetition state court foreclosure action due to noncompliance with Act 6, 41 P.S. § 403, I denied the Debtor’s request for attorney’s fees under 41 P.S. § 503. I based this ruling on the Pennsylvania Superior Court decision in Generation Mortgage Co. v. Nguyen, 138 A.3d 646, 651-52(Pa.Super.Ct. 2016).

Second, the Debtor requested that I fix the total allowed secured claim of Nations-tar. I denied this request, limiting my ruling to a determination of the amount of prepetition arrears.

On June 16, 2016, the Debtor filed the Motion, seeking reconsideration of the Order. (Doc. # 59). The parties waived argument on the Motion, relying instead on their written submissions. Briefing on the Motion was complete on July 12, 2016.

III. LEGAL STANDARDS—MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

Federal Rule 59(e), made applicable to this proceeding by Bankruptcy Rule 9023, allows a judgment to be altered or amended only if the moving party shows at least one (1) of the following grounds:

(1) an intervening change in the controlling law;
(2) the availability of new evidence that was not available when the court granted the motion; or
(3) the need to correct a clear error of law or fact or to prevent manifest injustice.

Blystone v. Horn, 664 F.3d 397, 415 (3d Cir.2011) (emphasis removed); accord Max’s Seafood Café ex rel. Lou-Ann, Inc. v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir.1999); Intermec Tech. Corp. v. Palm, Inc., 830 F.Supp.2d 1, 3-4 (D.Del.2011) (citing Max’s Seafood).

The movant must overcome a high burden in meeting this standard. ABS Brokerage Servs., LLC v. Penson Fin. Servs., Inc., 2010 WL 3257992, at *5 (D.N.J. Aug. 16, 2010); see also Blystone, [482]*482664 F.3d at 415 (“the scope of a motion for reconsideration ... is extremely limited”); Fanelli v. Continental Cas. Co., 2006 WL 3387187, at *2 (M.D.Pa. Nov. 21, 2006) (“reconsideration of judgment is an extraordinary remedy, and such motions should be granted sparingly”) (citation omitted).

Further, a Rule 59(e) motion is not a vehicle to relitigate matters that have already been considered by the court. In re Scotto-DiClemente, 463 B.R. 308, 310 (Bankr.D.N.J.2012) (“[a] motion for reconsideration is not to be used as a means to reargue matters already argued and disposed of or as an attempt to relitigate a point of disagreement between the Court and the litigant” (quoting Ogden v. Keystone Residence, 226 F.Supp.2d 588, 606 (M.D.Pa.2002)); Conway v. A.I. duPont Hosp. for Children, 2009 WL 1492178, at *2 (E.D.Pa. May 26, 2009) (“Parties may not use rule 59(e) motions as a vehicle to ask ... Courts to rethink what they have already thought through — rightly or wrongly.”) (internal citations and quotations omitted).

IV. THE DENIAL OF DEBTOR’S REQUEST FOR ATTORNEY’S FEES UNDER ACT 6, 41 P.S. § 503(a)

The main thrust of the Motion is that I committed an error of law in interpreting Act 6, 41 P.S. § 503(a) with respect to her request for attorneys fees — an issue yet to be ruled on by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In this case, after determining that Nationstar failed to comply with the pre-foreclosure notice requirements of Act 6, 41 P.S. § 403, and awarding the Debtor relief by sustaining, in part, her objection to Nationstar’s proof of claim, I denied her request for attorney’s fees under 41 P.S. § 503. In doing so, I relied upon and followed Nguyen, a recent decision of the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

In the absence of controlling state court precedent, I must predict how the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would resolve the issue by examining the decisional law of the Pennsylvania intermediate courts and decisions of federal courts and other jurisdictions that discuss the issue, See, e.g., Klein v. Weidner, 729 F.3d 280, 283 (3d Cir.2013) (citing Orson, Inc. v. Miramax Film Corp.,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
555 B.R. 479, 2016 Bankr. LEXIS 2805, 2016 WL 4137162, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-sellers-paeb-2016.