In Kleidman v. Pearlman (In re Pearlman), BAP No. CC-26-1005-LSG (9th Cir. BAP June 22, 2026), the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel ("BAP") held that the creditor's post-petition prosecution of a fraudulent transfer action against a non-debtor spouse violates...
In Phillips v. Goldman (In re Gilman), No. 24-2249 (9th Cir. 2026), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, held that a Chapter 7 trustee's property management functions are administrative rather than adjudicative in nature and therefore, do not qualify...
In Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, Inc., the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, held that in determining whether a debtor's omission of a claim from his bankruptcy schedules was the result of inadvertence or mistake for the purposes of judicial...
The Firm successfully defended our clients in binding arbitration and defeated all claims for breach of contract, intentional and negligent misrepresentation, unfair business practices, unjust enrichment, express indemnity, Civil RICO, and intentional and negligent...
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of California recently issued an Amended Order to Show Cause (“OSC”) in In re Gilsvik, 25-20121-B-7 (Bankr. E.D. Cal), signaling continued judicial scrutiny of attorney’s fees charged in individual Chapter 7 cases....
In Hayden v. Western Steel (In re Cashion Family Trust), the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (“BAP”) held that an order declaring a party is a vexatious litigant and imposing pre-filing restrictions in the bankruptcy court was not an abuse of discretion. In...
In In re Akhlaghpour, No. 24-2625 (9th Cir. January 20, 2026), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (“Ninth Circuit”) reaffirmed that a bankruptcy court may grant leave under the Barton doctrine even after a related state court action has already been filed and decided...
In Warfield v. Nance, No. 24-2745 (9th Cir. Oct. 14, 2025), the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that claim preclusion did not bar the debtor from amending the schedule of exemptions to claim a federal homestead exemption because the claim of federal bankruptcy...
In In re Lacher, the Ninth Circuit's Bankruptcy Appellate Panel ("BAP") resolved two complex legal issues: whether a chapter 7 discharge prevents the California State Bar (the "Bar") from disciplining an attorney and whether the Bar – as a governmental unit of...
In In re Uriostegui, the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (“BAP”) held that bankruptcy code limitations on debtors' state exemptions under § 522(q)(1)(B)(ii) require proof that the fiduciary relationship existed before, not as a result of, the fraudulent...