Michele Geraldine Ament

CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, D. New Mexico
DecidedJanuary 21, 2020
Docket19-12187
StatusUnknown

This text of Michele Geraldine Ament (Michele Geraldine Ament) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, D. New Mexico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Michele Geraldine Ament, (N.M. 2020).

Opinion

UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO

In re: MICHELE GERALDINE AMENT

Debtor. Case No.: 19-12187-j11

AMENDED MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER RESULTING FROM FINAL HEARING ON DEBTOR’S AMENDED DISCLOSURE STATEMENT1 THIS MATTER comes before the Court on Debtor’s Amended Disclosure Statement (Docket No. 41) filed on November 19, 2019. Creditors City Bank and New Mexico Tax and Revenue Department (NMTRD) objected to the Amended Disclosure Statement. See Docket Nos. 49, 50. A final hearing on the Amended Disclosure Statement was held on January 9, 2020. The parties and counsel who appeared at the hearing were noted in the record. The Amended Disclosure Statement related to Debtor’s Plan of Reorganization filed November 19, 2019 (the “Plan”). City Bank objects to approval of the Amended Disclosure on two grounds: first that the Plan is unconfirmable on its face because it requires this Court to divide community property between Debtor and E. Ament, which, City Bank argues, is not within this Court’s jurisdiction; and second, because the Amended Disclosure Statement does not contain adequate information in various respects. The Court will address each ground for the objections in turn.

1 This amended opinion and order amends and supersedes the Court’s order entered January 10, 2020 ruling on City Bank’s objections to the Amended Disclosure Statement. See Docket No. 56. In footnote 3 of that order the Court recognized that there is an issue concerning whether the bankruptcy court has jurisdiction to divide marital property as proposed in the plan but did not rule on that issue to expedite its ruling to meet the needs of the case. This amended opinion and order rules on the jurisdictional issue reserved in the original order to give guidance to the parties in further proceedings before the Court. This amended opinion and order does not change the ruling of the Court denying approval of the Amended Disclosure Statement with leave to amend. A. Should approval of the disclosure statement be denied because the Plan, which divides community property, is unconfirmable on its face?

Approval of a disclosure statement may be denied if the plan to which it relates is facially unconfirmable. In re Firstenergy Solutions Corp., 606 B.R. 720, 732 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio 2019); In re Deming Hospitality, LLC, No. 11-12-13377 TA, 2013 WL 1397458, at *1 (Bankr. D.N.M. Apr. 5, 2013) (J. Thuma) (citing cases). “Patent unconfirmability is treated as a matter of law.” Firstenergy, 606 B.R. at 732. In asserting that bankruptcy courts do not have jurisdiction to divide community property, City Bank relies on the “domestic relations exception” to federal court jurisdiction. That jurisdictional exception dates to 1858, when the United States Supreme Court “disclaim[ed] altogether any jurisdiction in the courts of the United States upon the subject of divorce, or for the allowance of alimony . . . .” Barber v. Barber, 62 U.S. 582, 584 (1858). The Court disagrees that the domestic relations exception applies here. More recently, in Ankenbrandt v. Richards, the United States Supreme Court reviewed Barber and held that “the domestic relations exception [to federal court jurisdiction] . . . divests the federal courts of power to issue divorce, alimony, and child custody decrees.” 504 U.S. 689, 703 (1992). However, in doing so, the Supreme Court acknowledged that “[t]he Barber Court . . . cited no authority and did not discuss the foundation for its announcement.” Id. at 694. The Ankenbrandt Court then examined why it would continue to recognize the domestic relations exception. First, it acknowledged that the domestic relations exception was not founded on the Constitution. Id. at

695.2 Next, the Ankenbrandt Court determined that Barber was based on interpretation of the federal diversity jurisdiction statute in effect at the time:

2 Ankenbrandt, 504 U.S. at 695 (“An examination of Article III, Barber itself, and our cases since Barber makes clear that the Constitution does not exclude domestic relations cases from the jurisdiction otherwise granted by statute to the federal courts.”). Because the Barber Court did not disagree with [the dissent’s] reason for accepting the jurisdictional limitation over the issuance of divorce and alimony decrees, it may be inferred fairly that the jurisdictional limitation recognized by the [Barber] Court rested on [the diversity statute] and that the disagreement between the [Barber] Court and the dissenters thus centered only on the extent of the limitation. Ankenbrandt, 504 U.S. at 699. See also Wigington v. McCarthy, 124 F.3d 219 (10th Cir. 1997) (unpublished) (as made clear in Ankenbrandt, the domestic relations exception exists as matter of statutory construction of the diversity jurisdiction statute). At the time of the Barber decision, the diversity statute granted district courts jurisdiction over “all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity.” That phrase “remained a key element of statutory provisions demarcating the terms of diversity jurisdiction until 1948, when Congress amended the diversity jurisdiction provision to eliminate th[at] phrase and replace it with the term ‘all civil actions.’” Ankenbrandt, 504 U.S. at 698; see 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a).3 The Supreme Court concluded that the change in the language of the diversity statute did not alter the domestic relations exception because Congress is presumed to make statutory amendments with “full cognizance of the Court’s nearly century-long interpretation of the prior statutes, which had

3 Section 1332(a) of title 28 states: The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is between-- (1) citizens of different States; (2) citizens of a State and citizens or subjects of a foreign state, except that the district courts shall not have original jurisdiction under this subsection of an action between citizens of a State and citizens or subjects of a foreign state who are lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States and are domiciled in the same State; (3) citizens of different States and in which citizens or subjects of a foreign state are additional parties; and (4) a foreign state, defined in section 1603(a) of this title, as plaintiff and citizens of a State or of different States. 28 U.S.C.§ 1332(a). construed the statutory diversity jurisdiction to contain an exception for certain domestic relations matters.” Id. at 700. Even though the Supreme Court’s decisions in Ankenbrandt and Barber confirm the domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction, those decisions do not establish a domestic relations exception to the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court. Unlike the jurisdictional statutes at

issue in Ankenbrandt and Barber, this Court’s jurisdiction rests on federal bankruptcy jurisdiction granted under 28 U.S.C. § 1334, not federal diversity jurisdiction granted under 28 U.S.C. § 1332.4 The Ankenbrandt Court framed the issue before it as “whether the federal courts have jurisdiction . . . when the sole basis for federal jurisdiction is the diversity-of-citizenship provision of 28 U.S.C.

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