Korean v. Dow Silicones Corporation

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: February 22, 2023
• Docket: 22-1771
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 23a0097n.06

Case Nos. 21-2665/22-1750/1753/1771

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

IN RE: SETTLEMENT FACILITY DOW CORNING ) TRUST. ) FILED ) Feb 22, 2023 _________________________________________ ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk KOREAN CLAIMANTS, ) Interested Parties - Appellants, ) ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE EASTERN DOW SILICONES CORPORATION; DEBTOR’S ) DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN REPRESENTATIVES; CLAIMANTS’ ADVISORY ) COMMITTEE, ) ) OPINION Interested Parties - Appellees, ) ) FINANCE COMMITTEE, ) Movant - Appellee. )

Before: BOGGS, GIBBONS, and READLER, Circuit Judges.

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Certain residents of Korea with claims related

to silicone breast implants (the “Korean Claimants”) against Dow Silicones Corporation (“Dow”)

appeal numerous district court orders in the bankruptcy proceedings concerning such claims. In

Case Nos. 21-2665 and 22-1771, we dismiss the appeals in part for lack of jurisdiction and affirm

in part. We dismiss the appeal in Case No. 22-1753 as untimely. We affirm the district court in

Case No. 22-1750.1

1 We note that the Korean Claimants’ appeal in Case No. 22-2167 is not yet fully briefed and therefore not ready for review. 21-2665/22-1750/1753/1771, In re Settlement Facility Dow Corning Trust

I.

We have repeatedly had occasion to summarize the extensive proceedings concerning the

bankruptcy of Dow Corning Corporation and settlement of claims related to silicone breast

implants, a process now approaching the beginning of its fourth decade. See, e.g., In re Dow

Corning Corp., 280 F.3d 648 (6th Cir. 2002); In re Settlement Facility Dow Corning Tr.

(“Settlement Facility I”), 592 F. App’x 473 (6th Cir. 2015). Most recently and relevantly, we

upheld the district court’s determination that the Settlement Facility, which was designed to pursue

global resolution of the claims, was “virtually guaranteed” to have sufficient funds to fully pay all

claims designated as first-priority under the reorganization plan (a category that includes the

Korean Claimants’ claims) and could therefore begin making payments to second-priority

claimants as well. See In re Settlement Facility Dow Corning Tr. (“Settlement Facility II”), 754

F. App’x 409, 416-17 (6th Cir. 2018).

Before us now are the Korean Claimants’ appeals from four district court orders. First, in

Case No. 21-2665, the Korean Claimants challenge the district court’s order 1) authorizing certain

additional payments to second-priority claimants; 2) denying their motion for premium payments;

and 3) denying their motion to vacate the district court’s earlier order, Closing Order 2, which

required them to confirm their addresses as a condition of receiving payments. Second, in Case

No. 22-1750, the Korean Claimants challenge the district court’s denial of their motion for an

extension of the deadline for filing claims where the deadline was a term of the reorganization

plan. Third, in Case No. 22-1753, filed more than a month past the thirty-day deadline for filing

appeals under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), the Korean Claimants challenge the district court’s entry

of Closing Order 5, which closed the claims of certain Korean Claimants who likewise missed

various deadlines to confirm their addresses. Fourth, in Case No. 22-1771, the Korean Claimants

2 21-2665/22-1750/1753/1771, In re Settlement Facility Dow Corning Trust

challenge the district court’s denial of their motion for a stay of its order at issue in Case No. 21-

2665.

II.

Because a litigant’s Article III standing affects our subject matter jurisdiction, we consider

it de novo. See Murray v. U.S. Dep’t of Treasury, 681 F.3d 744, 748 (6th Cir. 2012). We also

review a district court’s interpretation of the plain terms of a reorganization plan de novo. See In

re Settlement Facility Dow Corning Tr., 628 F.3d 769, 772 (6th Cir. 2010). We defer to a district

court’s reasonable interpretation and enforcement of its own orders. See Michigan v. City of Allen

Park, 954 F.2d 1201, 1213 (6th Cir. 1992).

III.

In Case Nos. 21-2665 and 22-1771, the Korean Claimants contest certain payments from

the Settlement Facility that the district court allowed to second-priority claimants. Because the

Korean Claimants have not established that those payments injured or might injure them, they lack

Article III standing to challenge those aspects of the district court’s order.

The “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing” includes three elements. Lujan v.

Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). First, the party seeking relief “must have suffered an

injury in fact” that is both “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent” rather than

“conjectural or hypothetical.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Second, “the

injury has to be fairly traceable to the challenged action.” Id. (cleaned up). Third, “it must be

likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.”

Id. at 561 (cleaned up). A litigant must have standing with respect to each form of relief she seeks,

see generally City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95 (1983), and the requirements of standing

apply with full force on appeal, Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. 693, 705 (2013).

3 21-2665/22-1750/1753/1771, In re Settlement Facility Dow Corning Trust

Here, distribution of payments to the second-priority creditors might constitute an injury

to the Korean Claimants sufficient for Article III standing if there were some likelihood that such

distribution would deplete funds that the Korean Claimants would otherwise receive. But see In

re Julien Co., 146 F.3d 420, 423 (6th Cir. 1998) (party that was “merely another creditor” not

“person aggrieved” by order allowing claim of different creditor). Importantly, though, we have

already upheld the district court’s previous determination that the Settlement Facility is “virtually

guaranteed” to have sufficient funds to pay all first-priority claimants, a category that includes the

Korean Claimants. See Settlement Facility II, 754 F. App’x at 416-17. The Korean Claimants

identify no reason to believe that has changed. Thus, the authorization of certain payments to

second-priority claimants has not injured and will not injure the Korean Claimants. Instead, the

Korean Claimants’ failure to receive payments to which they believe they are entitled is

attributable to their failure to provide confirmed addresses in a timely fashion, which is unrelated

to the Settlement Facility’s payments to second-priority creditors.

The Korean Claimants contend that they have standing under the standards established by

our decision in In re Gibson Group, Inc., 66 F.3d 1436 (6th Cir. 1995). Gibson was not about

Article III standing at all, but instead dealt with the circumstances under which a creditor has

derivative statutory standing to bring certain claims on behalf of the bankruptcy estate where the

estate itself fails to bring them, which is not what the Korean Claimants are trying to do here. See

id. at 1440-41. The Korean Claimants fail to develop, and therefore forfeit, any other argument

that they have standing to challenge the payments to second-priority creditors. See Taylor v. Pilot

Corp., 955 F.3d 572, 582 (6th Cir. 2020) (Thapar, J., concurring in part) (“Although parties cannot

waive arguments against jurisdiction, they are more than free to waive (or forfeit) arguments for

it.”). Accordingly, the Korean Claimants lack standing to the extent that they challenge the district

4 21-2665/22-1750/1753/1771, In re Settlement Facility Dow Corning Trust

court’s authorization of payments to second-priority creditors.

As for their challenges to the district court’s denial of their motions 1) for premium

payments; 2) to vacate the district court’s earlier order requiring them to confirm their addresses;

and 3) to stay the district court’s order to the extent that it concerned 1) and 2), the Korean

Claimants have standing because those orders prevent them from receiving payments they

otherwise might. See TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190, 2204 (2021) (identifying

“monetary harms” among those that “readily qualify” for Article III standing). However, those

aspects of the Korean Claimants’ appeals fail on the merits because the district court correctly

interpreted Closing Order 2 to require the Korean Claimants to confirm their addresses as a

condition of receiving payments and permissibly considered the Settlement Facility bound by

Closing Order 2, which the Korean Claimants had not appealed. See DE 1607, Mem. Op. and

Order, Page ID 28628-31 (citing DE 1482, Closing Order 2, 24086-87); see also Allen Park,

954 F.2d at 1213.

Accordingly, we dismiss the appeals in Case Nos. 21-2665 and 22-1771 in part for lack of

jurisdiction and affirm in part.

IV.

The Korean Claimants also have standing in Case Nos. 22-1750 and 22-1753 because the

orders they seek to challenge prevent them from receiving certain payments, see TransUnion,

141 S. Ct. at 2204, but those appeals likewise fail for other reasons.

In Case No. 1753, a previous panel has noted that the Korean Claimants’ appeal is

untimely. CA6 R. 32-2, Order, at 2. While that untimeliness did not affect our jurisdiction because

this is a bankruptcy matter, see id. at 2-3, it did make the Korean Claimants “unlikely to succeed

on the merits,” id. at 2. This prediction has proven accurate. The Korean Claimants argue that

5 21-2665/22-1750/1753/1771, In re Settlement Facility Dow Corning Trust

there was “excusable neglect” for their late filing. CA6 R. 33, Appellant Br., at 21. Like the

previous panel, we need not decide whether we might have the power to equitably toll the deadline

for filing an appeal in an exceptional case because the Korean Claimants point us to no exceptional

circumstances here, instead noting only that their counsel overlooked the relevant order on the

district court’s docket. See CA6 R. 32-2, Order, at 3 (citing Graham-Humphreys v. Memphis

Brooks Museum of Art, Inc., 209 F.3d 552, 560-61 (6th Cir. 2000)). We therefore dismiss the

appeal in Case No. 1753 as untimely.

In Case No. 22-1750, the district court correctly concluded that the final deadline to file

claims was an unambiguous plan term to which settling claimants agreed and which it therefore

had no authority to modify. See In re Clark-James, No. 08-1633, 2009 WL 9532581, at *2 (6th

Cir. Aug. 6, 2009) (“[T]he district court had no authority to modify the Plan[.]”). On appeal, the

Korean Claimants again argue that their failure to submit timely claims was “excusable neglect.”

CA6 R. 27, Appellant Br., at 11. But that standard applies to certain court deadlines, not to

deadlines included in the unambiguous terms of a reorganization plan to which a claimant has

voluntarily agreed. See Fed. R. Bankr. P. 3003(c)(3), 9006(b)(1). We therefore affirm in Case

No. 22-1750.

V.

We dismiss in part the appeals in Case Nos. 21-2665 and 22-1771 for lack of jurisdiction

and affirm in part. We dismiss the appeal in Case No. 22-1753 as untimely. We affirm the district

court in Case No. 22-1750.