Smith v. Dairymen, Inc.

790 F.2d 1107, 1 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 543, 1986 U.S. App. LEXIS 25116
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedMay 14, 1986
DocketNo. 85-1911
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 790 F.2d 1107 (Smith v. Dairymen, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Smith v. Dairymen, Inc., 790 F.2d 1107, 1 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 543, 1986 U.S. App. LEXIS 25116 (4th Cir. 1986).

Opinion

HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge:

The principal question presented by this appeal is whether the security interest of a creditor in the debtor’s livestock and other farm products extends to farm products produced after a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case was begun. A subsidiary question is one of the district court’s appellate bankruptcy jurisdiction.

The bankruptcy court held that the United States, acting through the Farmers Home Administration (FHA) and United Virginia Bank (United), had pre-petition security interests, under various security instruments, in milk produced by cows belonging to the debtors, Richard L. Smith and his wife, prior to the filing of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. The court decided, however, that that security interest, by virtue of 11 U.S.C. § 552(a), did not extend to milk produced post-petition. Although only FHA filed a notice of appeal to the district court, it exercised jurisdiction over the entire case. It ruled that FHA and United both had security interests in milk produced in the debtors’ dairy farming operation and that both security interests, by virtue of 11 U.S.C. § 552(b), extended to milk produced after the bankruptcy case commenced.

The debtor has appealed and we affirm the district court with respect to FHA, but we think that the district court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate United’s rights, and so we reverse its judgment for United.

I.

Smith and his wife owned and operated a dairy farm in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Their principal source of income is the sale of milk to Dairymen, Inc. Prior to commencement of the Chapter 11 proceeding, they had directed Dairymen to pay monthly certain sums as debt service to FHA, United and other creditors out of funds due Smith for the purchase of milk.

At the time that the Smiths filed under Chapter 11, monies were owed them by Dairymen for milk purchased before the bankruptcy filing occurred, and, as debtors in possession, they continued to sell milk to Dairymen after the bankruptcy filing occurred. After the bankruptcy filing, they sought to direct Dairymen to disregard their previous instructions to pay monthly sums to their creditors, but Dairymen and the creditors resisted and this adversary action ensued.

The bankruptcy court ruled that FHA and United held valid pre-petition security interests in the milk produced on the Smiths’ farm and in the proceeds of the [1109]*1109sale of milk to Dairymen, but it concluded that by virtue of 11 U.S.C. § 552(a), neither had a security interest in the milk produced and sold post-petition. Only FHA appealed to the district court, but it ruled that both FHA and United had a valid pre-petition interest in the milk and proceeds of sale and that by virtue of 11 U.S.C. § 552(b), both had a valid post-petition interest in the milk and proceeds of sale generated after the petition in bankruptcy was filed.

Before us, there is no dispute that FHA and United had a valid security interest in the milk produced and the proceeds derived from its sale. The dispute arises from the question of whether § 552(a) or 552(b) governs the rights of the parties with respect to milk produced and sold after the filing of the petition in bankruptcy. A second question that we must address is whether the district court had jurisdiction to adjudicate the rights of United, since it failed to appeal from the judgment of the bankruptcy court. We address these questions in inverse order.

II.

We do not think that the district court had jurisdiction to adjudicate the rights of United, and we reverse the judgment as to it.

The district court, as the initial appellate forum in this proceeding, would seemingly be without jurisdiction to determine the rights of United, since United, by not filing a notice of appeal to the district court, see Bankr.R. 8001(a), 8002, failed to invoke the court’s jurisdiction. Cf. In re LBL Sports Center, Inc., 684 F.2d 410, 412 (6 Cir.1982) (bankruptcy court’s judgment becomes final and unappealable if notice of appeal untimely filed); Matter of Ramsey, 612 F.2d 1220, 1221-22 (9 Cir.1980) (untimely filing of notice of appeal deprives district court of jurisdiction to review bankruptcy court’s order or judgment). Furthermore, under general principles of appellate procedure and jurisdiction, United should be unable to benefit from the decision obtained by FHA. This generally is true even if the co-parties’ rights will be affected equally by resolution of the very same issues. As a leading treatise states:

The general principle that a judgment will not be altered on appeal in favor of a party who did not appeal applies as well to cases in which the interests of the party not appealing are aligned with those of the appellant. Thus if co-defendants are held liable below, and one appeals and one does not, the party appealing does not stand as surrogate for the one who does not, and though the judgment be reversed, the party not appealing remains liable, despite the fact that the liability of each depends upon the same legal principles. Indeed the ultimate result is no different than it would be if individual suits had been brought and one had been successful and the other not.

9 Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 204.11[4], at 4-54 to -55 (2d ed. 1980) (citing Cook & Sons Equipment, Inc. v. Killen, 211 F.2d 607, 609 (9 Cir.1960) (“only the parties named in the notice of appeal are brought within the appellate court’s jurisdiction.”)). The treatise and the case it cites by way of example, however, deal with appeals from the district court to the court of appeals, and not with bankruptcy proceedings.

There appears to be little authority on this point in the bankruptcy context, and it is in conflict. In In re Credit Industrial Corp., 366 F.2d 402 (2 Cir.1966), only one of a number of creditors, along with the trustees in bankruptcy, petitioned for review in the district court of the bankruptcy referee’s1 order. The district court affirmed the referee’s order, and all of the creditors appealed to the court of appeals. The appeals court, in denying the bankruptcy trustee’s motion to dismiss the appeals of the creditors who had not earlier challenged the referee’s order, held that these creditors should be allowed to benefit from [1110]*1110the .courts’ holding in favor of the one creditor who had appealed. The court reasoned that, due to this creditor’s timely petition for review, the referee’s order was properly before the court and that to allow the decision on the propriety of the order to inure only to the benefit of one creditor “would be clearly inequitable and contrary to the well-established policy of like treatment for like creditors.”2 Id. at 407.

A more recent case from the Second Circuit, however, favors debtor’s position here.

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Bluebook (online)
790 F.2d 1107, 1 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 543, 1986 U.S. App. LEXIS 25116, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smith-v-dairymen-inc-ca4-1986.