Rapp v. Tucker, Vaughan, Gardner, & Barnes PC

176 F. App'x 540

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• Decided: April 17, 2006
• Docket: 05-20422
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM: *

Reviewing the record and applying the same standards as applied by the district court, we affirm for the following reasons:

1. The pre-petition value of contingent fee contracts realized by a defunct law firm is property of the bankruptcy estate and must be established by the trustee. Turner v. Avery, 947 F.2d 772, 774 (5th Cir. 1991). The trustee took steps to ensure that the estimates offered by Tucker, Vaughan were not biased against Rapp. Mr. Vaughan submitted a sworn statement attesting to the veracity of his firm’s stageofcompletion estimates. In addition, the trustee retained the outside firm of Carrigan, McCloskey & Roberson to spot check a random sample of Tucker, Vaughan’s estimates.

2. Unlike Connecticut Gen. Life Ins. Co. v. United Cos. Fin. Corp. (In re Foster Mortgage Corp.) 68 F.3d 914 (5th Cir.1995), this case does not involve transactions between a subsidiary and its corporate parent. Nor were Rapp’s interests and legal posture ignored. To the contrary, the bankruptcy judge accepted a settlement plan in which the trustee had a different methodology for determining the value of the pre-petition services than that which Rapp would most prefer. Rapp has not demonstrated that the settlement approved by the bankruptcy court rests on facts which were clearly erroneous.

Affirmed.

* Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.