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Opinions

United States Courts Opinions

United States Courts Opinions (USCOURTS) collection is a collaborative effort between the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC) to provide public access to opinions from selected United States appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts.

The District of Nebraska offers a database of opinions for the years 1997 to current, listed by year and judge. For a more detailed search, enter the keyword or case number in the search box above.

A UCC financing statement that did not appear under the borrower's legal name in a standard search of the Nebraska Secretary of State's records was "seriously misleading" under Revised Article 9 and was insufficient to perfect the security interest.

Because the debtor was "below-median," the court analyzed his Schedules I and J and determined that he had sufficient disposable income to pay all claims in full through the plan. Therefore, the court denied his proposal to make a lump-sum payment.

The court granted summary judgment to a secured creditor in an adversary proceeding brought by a pro se plaintiff to enforce a state-court judgment he held against the debtors. The defendant lender held perfected security interests in the debtors’ assets. The plaintiff did not challenge the validity and priority of the lender’s security interests, but argued the lender held the collateral in trust for the benefit of the plaintiff. Because there was no evidence the lender’s security interests were the product of fraud, misrepresentation, or an abuse of an influential or confidential relationship, this claim failed. Likewise, the plaintiff presented no evidence of any transfer to the lender that should be set aside, nor did the plaintiff put forth any authority to support his argument that by failing to promptly exercise its foreclosure rights, the lender participated in a civil conspiracy. Because there was no genuine issue of material fact for trial, summary judgment was warranted.

The court granted a creditor’s motion for relief from stay, finding that because the debtors had a Chapter 13 case pending in another district within the preceding year that was dismissed, the automatic stay in the present case terminated 30 days after the present case was filed, pursuant to § 362(c)(3). The debtors moved to extend the automatic stay, but the motion was filed after the 30-day period had expired, so it was untimely and the creditor was entitled to relief from stay.

Because the debtor utilized his 2005 corn crop as feed in his reorganized 2006 farming operation, the corn was an asset "used in the debtor's farming operation" under § 1222(a)(2)(A) and the tax should be treated as an unsecured non-priority claim.

The court refused to approve a sale of the debtors' real and personal property when it found that the debtors' objection to the claim of a lienholder in the property had been mistakenly granted. The claim and the value of the lien needed to be determined.

Cash advances obtained by the debtor on his credit card within 70 days before entry of the order for relief were presumed to be incurred in contemplation of bankruptcy and non-dischargeable under § 523(a)(2)(C). Debtor did not rebut that presumption.

In a Chapter 12 case, post-petition capital gains taxes resulting from the pre-petition sale of farm assets are unsecured claims not entitled to priority. Priority and non-priority tax claims should be allocated proportionally, not marginally.

Although the complaint appeared to be brought under § 727 and § 523, it contained no § 727 allegations, & entry of discharge prior to trial was res judicata. Moreover, the evidence at trial did not establish the elements of § 727(a)(2) or § 523(a)(2)(A).

The debtor's lease of real property required him to pay "special assessments," including levies for road construction and water treatment. The court deferred debtor's proposed assumption of the lease because the benefit to the estate was unclear.

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