Opinion ID: 12207
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Allocation Issue and the Ross Group's Alternative Argument

Text: 77 On appeal the Ross Group continues to protest the way that the proceeds of the trustee's sales between the Foundry and the Rolling Mill were allocated. Even though we reverse the bankruptcy and district courts' determinations that the Ross Group has no interest in the proceeds of the sale of the Foundry and hold instead that the Ross Group's security right in the leasehold interest followed it into the full ownership of the leased premises when those interests were merged by confusion into ownership in the person of the Debtor as mortgagor, we nevertheless agree with those courts and with CPB that the Ross Group's present challenge to the bankruptcy court's allocation of the proceeds of the trustee's sale must fail. 78 First, and most importantly, the Ross Group sought essentially identical relief on these very allocation issues in its objections at the October 1992 sale authorization hearing, and in its unsuccessful district court appeal of the bankruptcy court's sale order. Accordingly, its present claims on these issues are precluded under the doctrines of res judicata 51 and collateral estoppel. 52 Furthermore, under Bankruptcy Rule 8002, these claims are untimely as appeals of the 1992 sale order. 53 Therefore, the rulings of the bankruptcy and district courts on the allocation issues will not be addressed here, and the Ross Group's complaints in that regard are dismissed. 79 Second, we note that the Ross Group's alternative argument--that the leasehold collateral mortgage encumbered assets other than the leasehold--is moot. We have already determined that the Mortgage encumbered the Foundry itself and provides the Ross Group with the senior lien over the proceeds of the trustee's in globo sale of that property. III