Carroll v. Abide
| Decision Date | 11 September 2015 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 3:15-cv-00508-JWD-SCR |
| Parties | WILLIAM D. CARROLL, JR., and CAROLYN K. CARROLL Plaintiffs, v. SAMERA ABIDE, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Louisiana |
Before the Court is Plaintiffs' apparent appeal of an order, issued by United States Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Louisiana ("Bankruptcy Court"), that denied their request for a stay of an auction of their non-exempt property, itself authorized by an order dated June 1, 2015 ("Auction Order"), pending their appeal to this Court ("Present Appeal"). In this ill-drafted motion, Plaintiffs effectively seek review and reversal of three separate but linked orders via the Present Appeal, ignoring the import consequence of a most crucial date: on June 1, 2015, over Plaintiffs' objections, the Bankruptcy Court signed the Auction Order, thereby granting the Trustee's Motion to Sell Property Free and Clear of Liens under Section 363 at Auction throughCrescent City Auction Gallery, LLC and/or Crescent City Auction Exchange, LLC Combined with the Trustee's Application for Authority to Employ Auctioneer and to Pay Auctioneers' Compensation and Expenses and Buyers' Premium upon Sale ("Motion to Sell") and authorizing the auctioning of the Plaintiffs' non-exempt property. (Doc. 687, No. 08-bk-10756). More than three months later, on September 4, 2015, the Bankruptcy Court denied Plaintiffs' Motion for a Preliminary Injunction halting this imminent sale, (Doc. 13, No. 15-ap-01067), as memorialized in a written order docketed on September 9, 2015, (Doc. 32, No. 15-ap-01067). On September 10, 2015, the Bankruptcy Court disposed of one more motion—Plaintiffs' Expedited Motion to Stay Pending Appeal ("First Motion to Stay"), (Doc. 34, No. 15-ap-01067)—formally denying Plaintiffs' attempt to stay enforcement of this denial order pending their appeal to this Court on September 10, 2015. (Doc. 36, No. 15-ap-01067.) On September 10, 2015, Plaintiffs filed the Notice of Appeal from the Bankruptcy Court ("Notice of Appeal"), (Doc. 1, No. 15-cv-00508), and the Motion of Stay ("Second Motion to Stay"), (Doc. 2, No. 15-cv-00508), a document substantively identical to the Plaintiffs' Motion to Stay, (Doc. 34, No. 15-ap-01067), previously denied by the Bankruptcy Court, (Doc. 36, No. 15-ap-01067). Seemingly, therefore, Plaintiffs are appealing the Bankruptcy Court's order denying the First Motion to Stay.
For all the fog engendered by Plaintiffs' vague filings, the central issue is surprisingly clear and narrow—Plaintiffs are seeking to prevent an auction of their property scheduled to commence at 12:00 p.m., on September 11, 2015, pursuant to the Auction Order—and the standard to be applied—that set for a preliminary injunction, which requires the moving party to prove four separate elements—is incontestable. Thus, if Plaintiffs cannot show even one—a likelihood of success on the merits, for example, or no disservice to the public interest, for instance—no stay can issue, and their appeal must fail. Here, unfortunately for Plaintiffs, theirlikelihood of prevailing on the merits is miniscule, if not nonexistent, for the appeal of the underlying Auction Order is now jurisdictionally barred as a matter of unambiguous federal procedural law. Thus, they almost assuredly cannot obtain the relief they seek from any court, and neither their request for a stay nor their appeal is viable in light of their insufficient showing as to even this one element of the law's injunctive criterion.
For these reasons, as more fully explicated below, this Court DENIES the Second Motion for Stay, (Doc. 2, No. 15-cv-00508), and DISMISSES the Present Appeal.
On May 21, 2008, Mr. William Douglas Carroll, Jr., and Mrs. Carolyn Carroll ("Plaintiffs," "Carrolls," or "Debtors") filed a petition pursuant to chapter 13 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, lodged in title 11 of the United States Code. (Doc. 1, No. 08-bk-10756.) More than a year later, on August 27, 2009, the Bankruptcy Court converted Plaintiffs' chapter 13 case to a chapter 7 one. (Doc. 59, 75, Case No. 08-bk-10756.) On that same conversion date, Ms. Samera L. Abide ("Abide" or "Trustee") was appointed the trustee for the Plaintiffs' estate. Since that administrative action, Plaintiffs have engaged in an ever-growing array of disputes with the Trustee, as evidenced by the more than seven-hundred entries on the underlying bankruptcy case's docket.
The dispute on appeal bears a more recent genesis. On April 30, 2015, the Trustee filed the Motion to Sell Property Free and Clear of Liens under Section 363 at Auction through Crescent City Auction Gallery, LLC and/or Crescent City Auction Exchange, LLC Combined with the Trustee's Application for Authority to Employ Auctioneer and to Pay Auctioneers' Compensation and Expenses and Buyers' Premium upon Sale ("Motion to Sell"). (Doc. 670, No08-bk-01067.) The Bankruptcy Court scheduled a hearing on this filing for May 27, 2015. (Doc. 671, No 08-bk-01067.) Plaintiffs filed a five-page opposition on May 19, 2015. (Doc. 680, No. 08-bk-01067.) Two other persons, Mses. Pamela K. Alonso and Cynthia G. O'Neal, tendered their own objection on that date. (Doc. 682, No. 08-bk-01067.) The Trustee, of course, objected. (Doc. 684, No. 08-bk-01067.) Having considered each relevant document, the Bankruptcy Court signed the Auction Order on June 1, 2015. (Doc. 687, No. 08-bk-01067.)
On August 19, 2015, more than two months later, Plaintiffs filed their most recent complaint, initiating the bankruptcy case's latest adversarial offshoot. (Doc. 1, No. 15-ap-01067.) Notably, this complaint declaims any connection with a matter recently remanded to this Court by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. (Id. at 1.) Though this twelve-page document makes a number of different inapposite allegations, from fraud to perjury, in relevant part it implied the impropriety of the Auction Order in light of Plaintiffs' desire to "'buy-out' the movables," the property to be auctioned, "at a fair market value," as allegedly determined by their own appraisers. (Id. at 6-7.) Actually, the complaint's title makes the Plaintiffs' aim explicit: "Complaint for Relief: Debtor's [sic] . . . Request [for] a Temporary Restraining Order . . . Against the September 11-13 Sale of their Estate Movables," (Id. at 1), as does the attached proposed order, (Doc. 2, No. 15-ap-01067). With this latest adversary proceeding, then, Plaintiffs sought to stop the auction of their property originally authorized on June 1, 2015, (Doc. 1 at 12, No. 15-ap-01067), an order never officially appealed. On August 31, 2015, Plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction ("Motion for Injunction") wherein they asked the Bankruptcy Court to grant an injunction barring the holding of the auctionpresently scheduled for September 11, 2015. (Doc. 13 at 2, No. 15-ap-01067.)1 Otherwise, they maintained, "[a]n irreparable harm will occur," and "loss of their personal property . . . will continue to occur." (Id.) The Trustee opposed this motion. (Doc. 28, No. 15-ap-01067.) On September 4, 2015, the Bankruptcy formally denied the Motion for Injunction ("Injunction Order"). (Doc. 32, No. 15-ap-01067.) This imperfect appeal followed.
On September 10, 2015, the Trustee filed her own opposition. (Doc. 3, No. 15-cv-00508-JWD-SCR.) The Trustee offers five relevant arguments. First, since the Auction Order issued on June 1, 2015, it became final in accordance with the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure2 on June 16, 2015. (Id. at 1.) Second, since Plaintiffs lack the standing to bring the underlying complaint or the motion or preliminary injunction, "it stands to reason that the Carrolls have no right to a stay pending appeal of the Court's orders." (Id. at 2.) Third, the standards for preliminary injunction and a stay are identical, and Plaintiffs did not offer "credible evidence of (1) irreparable injury, (2) likelihood of success on the merits, (3) a favorable balance of hardships, and (4) adverse effect on the public interest" before the Bankruptcy Court on September 4, 2015. (Id.) Fourth, "[t]he Trustee has always recognized the Carrolls' right to the exemption under La. R.S. 13:3881 of their clothing, wedding rings (up to $5,000 in value) and the 1997 Mercedes," and none of this exempt property is part of the scheduled auction. (Id. at 2-3.) In a derivative argument, the Trustee contends that she has never attempted to sell any of Plaintiffs' exempt movables. (Id. at 3.) Finally, Trustee asserts that the Auction order is "final and unappealable," leaving Plaintiffs with "no basis upon which . . . [they] are entitled to relief."(Id. at 3.) The Auction Order, Defendant contends, is insulated from review by the defenses of res judicata and collateral estoppel. (Id. at 3.)
Though the Plaintiffs' papers are no models of clarity, to the extent that the Present Appeal requests a stay of the auction scheduled to begin on September 11, 2015, a matter governed by Rule 8007, Plaintiffs must demonstrate a likelihood of success upon the merits for any such stay to be granted by this or any other court. In other words, they must provide sufficiently persuasive evidence to convince this Court that the Auction Order can be reviewed and overturned. If no such reasonable possibility exists or if Plaintiffs have failed to provide convincing evidence of such a possibility's reasonableness, their appeal must fail. Thus, it is not the content of the Plaintiffs' papers in this Court upon which their case now hinges. Instead, it is the legal unassailability, if any, of the Auction Order.
Governed by Rule 8007, FED. R. BANKR. P. 8007(b)(1), "[t]he standard for granting a stay pending appeal mirrors that for granting a preliminary injunction." In re A...
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