Opinion ID: 75837
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application to Injunctive Claims

Text: 23 Finally, Billups urges us to limit the application of judicial estoppel in this case to his claims for monetary relief, and allow him to proceed with his claim for injunctive relief against Pemco. The issue, therefore, is whether judicial estoppel applies to the pursuit of an unreported claim for injunctive relief. In this instance, we conclude that it does not. 24 Billups seeks injunctive relief prohibiting Pemco and its officers, supervisors, agents, employees or successors from engaging in illegal employment practices. He also asks that the Defendants be required to adopt employment practices that are in accordance with federal employment laws. With respect to the applicability of judicial estoppel to this case, we are concerned with Billups' failure to disclose his claim for millions of dollars in damages to the bankruptcy court, because that information would have been important to the court in determining whether his case should have been converted to Chapter 7, or whether he qualified for a no asset discharge. The bankruptcy court must be confident that it has the full and honest disclosure of the debtor concerning any potential assets that could increase the value of the estate for the creditors. See New Hampshire, 532 U.S. at 750-51, 121 S.Ct. at 1815 (explaining that there is not an exhaustive formula for determining the applicability of judicial estoppel, and courts should consider the facts of a particular case in its analysis). The Supreme Court explains that: 25 The federal system of bankruptcy is designed not only to distribute the property of the debtor, not by law exempted, fairly and equally among his creditors, but as a main purpose of the act, intends to aid the unfortunate debtor by giving him a fresh start in life, free from debts, except of a certain character, after the property which he owned at the time of bankruptcy has been administered for the benefit of creditors. Our decisions lay great stress upon this feature of the law — as one not only of private but of great public interest in that it secures to the unfortunate debtor, who surrenders his property for distribution, a new opportunity in life. 26 Stellwagen v. Clum, 245 U.S. 605, 617, 38 S.Ct. 215, 218-19, 62 L.Ed. 507 (1918). 27 In this situation, knowledge that the debtor was pursuing a discrimination claim seeking injunctive relief that offered no monetary value to the estate, would not, in all likelihood, have changed the bankruptcy court's determination about how to proceed with the debtor's bankruptcy. What is clear is that in order to gain the benefits of the bankruptcy laws, the debtor must first surrender his non-exempt property for the benefit of his creditors. The trustee and the creditors are interested in the debtor's property that can add anything of value to the estate. We conclude that Billups' undisclosed claim for injunctive relief offered nothing of value to the estate and was of no consequence to the trustee or the creditors. 3 We decide, then, that the important and necessary reasons that bar Billups' monetary claims do not affect his efforts to change, through injunctive relief, Pemco's employment practices. He may pursue his claims for injunctive relief.