NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

In the Matter of: PG&E CORPORATION; 

PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC 

COMPANY, 

Debtors, 

------------------------------

CANYON CAPITAL ADVISORS LLC, 

Appellant, 

 v. 

PG&E CORPORATION; et al., 

Appellees.

No. 21-15025 

D.C. No. 4:20-cv-04949-HSG 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., District Judge, Presiding

Submitted December 6, 2021**

San Francisco, California

Before: LUCERO,***IKUTA, and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision 

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

FILED

DEC 16 2021

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

Appellant Canyon Capital Advisors LLC (“Canyon”) appeals the district 

court’s dismissal of its appeal of a bankruptcy court order confirming Appellees’ 

(“the Debtors”) Chapter 11 reorganization plan (“the Plan”). The parties’ 

underlying dispute centers on the amount of post-petition interest Canyon is owed 

under the Plan on its unsecured, unimpaired claims. The district court dismissed 

Canyon’s appeal on three independent grounds, concluding that: (1) Canyon’s 

notice of appeal was untimely under applicable Federal Rules of Bankruptcy 

Procedure; (2) Canyon forfeited its right to appeal by failing to provide formal 

notice of its objection to the Plan’s post-petition interest provisions; and (3) release 

and injunction clauses in the confirmed Plan barred Canyon’s appeal. Exercising 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 158(d)(1), we affirm on the first ground and decline 

to reach the other two.

Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 8002(a)(1) requires that “a notice of 

appeal must be filed with the bankruptcy clerk within 14 days after entry of the 

judgment, order, or decree being appealed.” Fed. R. Bankr. P. 8002(a)(1). A party 

that does not file within this initial fourteen-day period may look to Rule 

8002(a)(3), which states that when one party has filed a timely notice of appeal 

from a bankruptcy court order, “any other party may file a notice of appeal within 

*** The Honorable Carlos F. Lucero, United States Circuit Judge for the 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation.
3 

14 days after the date when the first notice was filed.” Fed. R. Bankr. P. 

8002(a)(3). 

In this case, the bankruptcy court’s order approving the Debtors’ plan 

(“Confirmation Order”) issued June 20, 2020. The first notice of appeal of the 

Confirmation Order was filed by the Public Employees Retirement Association of 

New Mexico (“PERA”) on July 2. However, Canyon did not file its notice of 

appeal until July 17, 2020, nearly a month after the Confirmation Order was 

entered and fifteen days after PERA noticed the first appeal of the Confirmation 

Order. As a result, the district court concluded that Canyon’s appeal was untimely 

under Rules 8002(a)(1) and 8002(a)(3).

Canyon argues that its fourteen-day appeal period under Rule 8002(a)(3)

actually began on July 3, 2020, when the Ad Hoc Committee of Holders of Trade 

Claims (“Trade Committee”) filed its notice of appeal. Canyon claims that both it 

and the Trade Committee sought appeal not of the Confirmation Order, but of an 

earlier interlocutory order regarding the rate of post-petition interest the Plan was 

required to pay on unsecured, unimpaired claims (“PPI Order”). Because the 

Trade Committee noticed the first appeal of the PPI Order on July 3, and Canyon 

filed its appeal of that order on July 17, Canyon argues it satisfied the fourteen-day 

deadline under Rule 8002(a)(3). 
4 

This argument fails. As an initial matter, Canyon’s characterization is at 

odds with how the parties themselves framed their appeals. Both Canyon and the 

Trade Committee stated in their notices that they were appealing from the 

bankruptcy court’s Confirmation Order. A footnote in Canyon’s notice even 

referred to the Trade Committee’s appeal as “an appeal of the Confirmation 

Order.” By contrast, the notices did not expressly seek appeal of the PPI Order, 

but instead stated that order was “incorporate[d] by reference” in the Confirmation 

Order. More generally, Canyon’s argument ignores that only the Confirmation 

Order fixed the rights and obligations of the parties, including the amount of postpetition interest Canyon was to be paid on the claims at issue in this case, by 

expressly incorporating the PPI Order and approving the Plan. Because PERA, the 

Trade Committee, and Canyon all sought to appeal the Confirmation Order, the 

district court properly concluded that Canyon’s fourteen-day window under Rule 

8002(a)(3) to file its notice of appeal began on July 2. Canyon did not file its 

notice until fifteen days later, and therefore its appeal was untimely. 

The district court held it lacked jurisdiction as a result of Canyon’s untimely 

appeal. See, e.g., In re Ozenne, 841 F.3d 810, 814 (9th Cir. 2016). We have 

“leeway to choose among threshold grounds for denying audience to a case on the 

merits.” Sinochem Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 431 

(2007) (quotation omitted). We need not address in this case whether Rule 8002 is 
5 

jurisdictional, because PG&E properly invoked the rule in its motion to dismiss. 

“If properly invoked, mandatory claim-processing rules must be enforced.” Hamer 

v. Neighborhood Hous. Servs. of Chicago, 138 S. Ct. 13, 17 (2017). Therefore, the 

district court did not err in dismissing Canyon’s appeal for failure to file a timely 

notice of appeal under Rule 8002. 

Because the district court did not err in dismissing Canyon’s untimely 

appeal, we decline to consider whether Canyon forfeited its objections to the Plan 

or was barred by the Plan’s terms from pursuing this appeal. 

AFFIRMED.