Opinion ID: 222590
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The BAP's Jurisdiction

Text: We next must decide whether the BAP had jurisdiction over an appeal, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, of a post-transfer order of a bankruptcy judge serving in the District of Delaware under § 158(a), which again requires that an appeal be taken only to the district court for the judicial district in which the bankruptcy judge is serving. Based on the long-standing principle that a judgment entered in the absence of jurisdiction is void, HealthTrio contends that § 158(a) does not require an appeal to be taken in the district where the order was entered. Instead, HealthTrio argues, the statute directs that an appeal be taken in the district where the presiding bankruptcy judge is serving, i.e., a bankruptcy judge with jurisdiction, which apparently is determined at the time the appeal is filed. Aplt. Opening Br. at 18-19. We disagree. Because the BAP's jurisdictional dismissal rested on statutory interpretation, our review is de novo. See Karr v. Hefner, 475 F.3d 1192, 1200 (10th Cir. 2007). It is our primary task in interpreting statutes to determine congressional intent, using traditional tools of statutory construction. St. Charles Inv. Co. v. Comm'r, 232 F.3d 773, 776 (10th Cir.2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). It is a well established law of statutory construction that, absent ambiguity or irrational result, the literal language of a statute controls. Edwards v. Valdez, 789 F.2d 1477, 1481 (10th Cir.1986). [I]f the statutory language is clear, our analysis ordinarily ends. Russell v. United States, 551 F.3d 1174, 1178 (10th Cir.2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). If the statute's plain language is ambiguous as to Congressional intent, we look to the legislative history and the underlying public policy of the statute. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Given that the transfer of venue in this case was completed before entry of the order for relief, the literal language of § 158(a) provides little help, and we have found nothing significant in the legislative history or published case law. A leading bankruptcy treatise characterizes § 158(a)'s territorial mandate as self-explanatory. 1 Alan N. Resnick & Henry J. Sommer, Collier On Bankruptcy ¶ 5.02[2] (16th ed.2011). This view, however, proves too little when applying § 158(a)'s mandate in a case transferred under § 1412 since the jurisdictional statute does not plainly contemplate such a scenario. We do, however, note the statute's territorial limitation may serve a clarifying function when a bankruptcy judge appointed to serve in one judicial district temporarily serves in or is transferred to another judicial district pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 152(d) or 155(a). Because we find no firm answers in the statutory language, the legislative history, the underlying public policy, the treatises, or the case law regarding § 158(a) in the context of a § 1412 transfer, we turn to analogous statutes outside the bankruptcy context. Cf. True Oil Co. v. Comm'r, 170 F.3d 1294, 1300 (10th Cir.1999) (stating that, [w]hen interpreting statutory language, this court looks not only at the specific statute at issue, but also examines that statute in context with related statutes). Specifically, we look to 28 U.S.C. § 1294(1), which establishes the geographic scope of federal circuit court jurisdiction over appeals from the district courts, and 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), the change-of-venue statute applicable in civil actions. [7] Like § 158(a), § 1294(1) confers jurisdiction in a territorial manner. It provides that appeals from reviewable decisions of the district and territorial courts shall be taken to the court of appeals as follows: (1) From a district court of the United States to the court of appeals for the circuit embracing the district. 28 U.S.C. § 1294(1). Also like § 158(a), the literal language of § 1294(1) does not account for transferor court orders or judgments in transferred cases. However, in McGeorge v. Continental Airlines, Inc., 871 F.2d 952, 954 (10th Cir.1989), a case involving a § 1404(a) transfer, this court interpreted § 1294(1) to preclude appellate review in this circuit of any pre-transfer decisions by a district court lying outside of this circuit, emphasizing that jurisdiction of the courts of appeals is territorial. ... When Congress defined the outer limits beyond which an appellate court cannot reach, it meant to limit the power of review as well as the authority to supervise to those district courts within the circumscribed circuit. And in Chrysler Credit Corp., another § 1404(a) case, this court stated that under McGeorge, a circuit court can only indirectly review an extra-circuit, pre-transfer decision by examining the transferee district court's application of law-of-the-case principles to the decision at issue. 928 F.2d at 1518. [8] The territorial limitations in § 158(a) and § 1294(1) are analogous. Thus, although McGeorge involved this court's jurisdiction to review pre -transfer decisions of an extra-circuit district court, we see no reason to distinguish it here, where HealthTrio seeks Tenth Circuit BAP review of a post -transfer order of an extra-district bankruptcy judge. Applying this circuit's territorial view of appellate jurisdiction in McGeorge, we hold that § 158(a)'s mandate that an appeal of a decision by a bankruptcy judge shall be taken only to the district court for the judicial district in which the bankruptcy judge is serving forecloses Tenth Circuit BAP review of the Delaware bankruptcy judge's order for relief because the issuing bankruptcy judge was serving outside of the judicial district (Colorado) where the appeal was filed. This does not leave the parties without a remedy. In Chrysler, we stated that although traditional principles of law of the case counsel against the transferee court reevaluating the rulings of the transferor court, a prior ruling of a transferor court... may be reconsidered when, among other things, a clear error has been committed or to prevent manifest injustice. 928 F.2d at 1516 (emphasis added). Under Chrysler, it appears the Colorado Bankruptcy Court could reevaluate the order for relief and the BAP could review that court's application of law-of-the-case principles. However, it does not appear the parties have asked the Colorado Bankruptcy Court to reevaluate the order for relief.