Riddervold, In re, 884

• Decision Date: 27 April 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80-5062,No. 884,D,884,80-5062
• Parties: 4 Collier Bankr.Cas.2d 517, 7 Bankr.Ct.Dec. 921, Bankr. L. Rep. P 67,986 In re David B. RIDDERVOLD and Susan R. Riddervold, Debtors. David B. RIDDERVOLD and Susan R. Riddervold, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The SARATOGA HOSPITAL, Mohawk National Bank, Marine Midland Bank-Rochester, and Safeguard Business Systems, Inc., Defendants, The Saratoga Hospital, Defendant-Appellee. ocket
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 342

647 F.2d 342

4 Collier Bankr.Cas.2d 517, 7 Bankr.Ct.Dec. 921,

Bankr. L. Rep. P 67,986

In re David B. RIDDERVOLD and Susan R. Riddervold, Debtors.

David B. RIDDERVOLD and Susan R. Riddervold, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The SARATOGA HOSPITAL, Mohawk National Bank, Marine Midland

Bank-Rochester, and Safeguard Business Systems,

Inc., Defendants,

The Saratoga Hospital, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 884, Docket No. 80-5062.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued March 31, 1981.

Decided April 27, 1981.

John F. Maxwell, Albany, N. Y. (Law Offices of Robert S. Bernard, Albany, N. Y.), for defendant-appellee.

Richard A. LaPointe, Schenectady, N. Y. (Robert M. Cohen, and Susan L. Kauffman, Troy, N. Y.), on submission for plaintiffs-appellants.

Before FRIENDLY and MANSFIELD, Circuit Judges and NEWMAN, Judge. ^*

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge:

David B. and Susan R. Riddervold filed voluntary petitions in the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York for relief under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 (the Code) on December 3, 1979. A month later they filed a complaint against four judgment creditors. In a first cause of action, not at issue on this appeal, they sought to cancel judgment liens recorded in the Saratoga County Clerk's office in the aggregate amount of $4,367.45 under § 522(f) of the Code to the extent that such liens would impair their equity of some $5,500 in their residence allowed by § 522(d)(1). A second cause of action asserted on behalf of David B. Riddervold (hereafter Riddervold) that between September 3 and December 3, 1979, one of the defendants, the Saratoga Hospital, had caused monies to be deducted from his wages by virtue of an income execution served on his employer in the amount of $260; that such monies constituted preferences which Riddervold's trustee could have avoided; that if the trustee had avoided these payments, Riddervold could have exempted them under the blanket exemption of § 522(d)(5), to wit, $400 plus any unused amount of the exemption provided in § 522(d)(1); but that the trustee had not attempted and would not attempt to recover the alleged preferences. In its answer Saratoga Hospital prayed for judgment dismissing the second cause of action. Bankruptcy Judge Mahoney granted this prayer, and an appeal was taken directly to this court by agreement purportedly pursuant to the authority of 28 U.S.C. § 1293(b).

We are met at the outset with a problem concerning our appellate jurisdiction not noticed by the parties. Title II of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, § 236, added to Title 28 of the U.S.Code a section reading as follows:

§ 1293(b). Notwithstanding section 1482 of this title, a court of appeals shall have jurisdiction of an appeal from a final judgment, order, or decree of an appellate panel created under section 160 of a District court of the United States or from a final judgment, order, or decree of a bankruptcy court of the United States if the parties to such appeal agree to a direct appeal to the court of appeals.

If this statute were presently effective, there would be considerable doubt whether the bankruptcy judge's order refusing relief on the second cause of action constituted "a final judgment, order, or decree of a bankruptcy court of the United States". It has been said that § 1293(b) a radical change from § 24(a) of the former Bankruptcy Act "was obviously modelled" on § 1291, allowing appeals from "final decisions" of district courts, 1 Collier, Bankruptcy § 3.03 at 3-309 (15th ed. 1980). Under the doctrines developed pursuant to that section, appellate jurisdiction would be defeated, in a proceeding such as this, since the first cause of action apparently remains pending, see Hardin v. M/V Ben Candies, 549 F.2d 395 (5 Cir. 1977); Republic of China v. American Express Co., 190 F.2d 334, 338-39 (2 Cir. 1951); Flegenheimer v. Manitoba Sugar Co., Ltd., 182 F.2d 742 (2 Cir. 1950); 6 Moore, Federal Practice P 54.28(2) (1976), and the bankruptcy judge has made no certificate under F.R.Civ.P. 54(b) which was made applicable to adversary proceedings in bankruptcy by Bankruptcy Rule 754. However, under § 402(b) of the 1978 Act, the amendment adding § 1293 to Title 28 does not take effect until April 1, 1984. During the "transition period", see § 404(b), § 405(c)(1) provides in pertinent part that "an appeal from a judgment, order, or decree of a United States bankruptcy judge" may be taken

(B) if the parties agree to a direct appeal to the court of appeals for such circuit, then to such court of appeals.

It seems therefore that, for whatever reason, Congress did not intend the finality requirement of the new § 1293(b) to apply to appeals taken to the courts of appeals from orders of bankruptcy judges by agreement during the transition period.

The Hospital's claim here at issue arose from medical treatment rendered to Susan R. Riddervold in 1976 and 1977. When the Hospital's bill was not paid, at least in full, it obtained a New York state court judgment, in the amount of $1,410.50 against Mr. Riddervold on March 17, 1977, which it recorded in the office of the Saratoga County Clerk. On January 17, 1978, it served an "income execution" pursuant to this judgment upon Riddervold's employer, the State of New York, under N.Y.C.P.L.R. § 5231. Under this execution the State made two payments aggregating $227 ¹ to the Hospital from wages otherwise payable to Riddervold within 90 days of the petition in bankruptcy. Riddervold contends that these payments constituted preferences which his trustee could have avoided under § 547 and that since the trustee has not taken and will not take proceedings to that end, Riddervold is entitled to do so under § 522(h). ² The validity of this contention depends on applying the section of the 1978 Code relating to preferences, § 547, to the result of the action taken by the Hospital under N.Y.C.P.L.R. § 5231.

Section 547 of the 1978 Code completely rewrote § 60, the preference section of the Act of 1898 as amended, and removed or altered related material that had previously been dealt with in the lien provision, § 67. The key provision for this case is § 547(b). This allows the trustee to "avoid any transfer of property of the debtor", to or for the benefit of a creditor, for or on account of an antecedent debt, made while the debtor was insolvent ³ and within specified periods, here 90 days, before the filing of the petition and that enables the creditor to receive "more than such creditor would receive if

(A) the case were a case under chapter 7 of this title;

(B) the transfer had not been made; and

(C) such creditor received payment of such debt to the extent provided by the provisions of this title."

Apparently the Riddervolds' exemptions exceeded their debts so that the Hospital would have received nothing under this test. Section 101(40) broadly defines "transfer" to include "every mode, direct or indirect, absolute or conditional, voluntary or involuntary, or (sic) disposing of or parting with property or with an interest in property, including retention of title as a security interest." We quote in the margin the pertinent provisions of N.Y.C.P.L.R. § 5231 entitled "Income Execution." ⁴ Since the income execution was issued on January 17, 1978, it is safe to assume that the steps to and including the levy on the employer occurred long before the 90 days prior to the bankruptcy petition of December 3, 1979. Riddervold has not claimed the contrary.

There is a dearth of authority on the question whether payments by an employer during the crucial period then four months to a judgment creditor who had levied on the employer before the beginning of that period under N.Y.C.P.L.R. § 5231 and its predecessors, N.Y.C.P.A. § 684 and § 1391 of the N.Y. Code of Civil Procedure, constituted preferences under § 60 of the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 if the other requirements of that section were met. Indeed we have been cited to none. ⁵ Such cases as have been called to our attention or been found by our own research dealt with the provision of § 67 invalidating liens obtained within the four-months period rather than the recovery of preferences; they arose when the creditor sought modification of a stay of state court proceedings so as to enable him to collect moneys in the hands of the employer or the sheriff and the bankrupt opposed.

Early in his judicial career Judge L. Hand held in In re Sims, 176 F. 645 (S.D.N.Y.1910), that moneys withheld from the bankrupt's salary under a levy under § 1391 of the New York Code of Civil Procedure more than four months old at the date of the bankruptcy and still in the hands of the sheriff at the date of adjudication belonged to the creditors, whereas post-adjudication earnings of the bankrupt did not. On the former point he reasoned that the execution operated as a "continuing levy". In re Beck, 238 F. 653 (S.D.N.Y.1915), involved a portion of Beck's salary retained by the city paymaster pursuant to an execution under the same statute also long antedating the bankruptcy. Without referring to In re Sims, supra, and in misplaced reliance on Clarke v. Larremore, 188 U.S. 486, 23 S.Ct. 363, 47 L.Ed. 555 (1903), not a garnishment case, where the judgment, levy and execution all occurred within the four-months period, Judge Hough held that the trustee was entitled to such moneys still in the paymaster's hands as represented retentions during the four-month period. He argued that "there could be no levy upon Beck's salary until there was a salary to levy upon. Therefore the date of levy is coincident with the date of accruing wage." However, he also held that if the debtor did not receive a discharge, amounts retained after the beginning of the four-months period and indeed after the adjudication should be payable to the judgment creditor. Judge Hough's reasoning had scant appeal to Judge Mayer, a judge with great experience in bankruptcy, when he was shortly...