Opinion ID: 725498
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Timeliness of the Third Extension Motion

Text: 13 On August 15, 1994, the bankruptcy court ordered that the automatic bankruptcy stay be lifted if Burger Boys failed to assume the lease within sixty days of that order, i.e., by October 14, 1994. However, the bankruptcy court also stated that [t]his Order is hereby stayed pending the entry of a final order determining the Debtor/Plaintiff's appeal to the District Court. On December 15, 1994, the district court affirmed the bankruptcy court's prior order and, on December 19, entered judgment in favor of South Street. On February 16, 1995, sixty-three days after the district court's order was issued and fifty-nine days after the judgment was entered, Burger Boys filed the third motion for an extension. South Street now contends that the time for filing the third extension motion ran from the date the order was issued, not when judgment was entered, and therefore the motion was untimely. 14 The bankruptcy court's use of the phrase final order here is ambiguous. On the one hand, the use of order could indicate, as South Street urges us, that the bankruptcy court meant to refer to the order that would decide Burger Boys' appeal. On the other hand, the use of final could mean, as Burger Boys argues, that the bankruptcy court meant to refer to that act which brings the appeal to an end, here the entry of judgment. 15 Finality is determined on the basis of pragmatic, not needlessly rigid pro forma, analysis. Fiataruolo v. United States, 8 F.3d 930, 937 (2d Cir.1993). The Bankruptcy Rules generally provide that the time to complete actions subsequent to an appeal to the district court run from the time of the entry of the judgment and the issuance of the order. For instance, Bankr.R. 8016(b) states that it is the judgment that triggers the duty of the district court clerk to contact the bankruptcy court clerk. Similarly, Bankr.R. 8015 provides that a party has ten days from the entry of the judgment to file a motion for rehearing and Bankr.R. 8017(a) states that [j]udgments of the district court ... are stayed until the expiration of 10 days after entry. Because the bankruptcy court's use of the term final order is ambiguous and because the general rule is that the time to perform an act after a bankruptcy appeal in the district court runs from the entry of judgment, we find that final order refers to the entry of judgment and that the third extension motion was timely filed. 16