Court Opinion

ID: 9460057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:39:29.761354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:27.238121
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
With deference to Judge Gordon’s painstaking analysis, I take a different and much simpler — perhaps simplistic— view of the case. Certainly we are not compelled to dismiss this appeal, and I would not do so but rather would go to the merits.
It is clear to all that Burkett sought by a series of motions that a cause of action against Shell should be asserted by whoever is the correct party plaintiff —by himself without the trustee in bankruptcy as a party, by himself with the trustee joined, by himself suing for the use of the trustee, or by the trustee alone with the bankruptcy estate reopened. The panel in the first appeal only considered the question of whether Burkett individually had standing to assert the cause, acting under the impression that it was yet to be determined at the district court level whether the trustee or someone else on behalf of the bankrupt estate had standing and should pursue the claim. Had the panel not been under a misapprehension it might have ordered the record updated, all aspects of the matter consolidated, and then settled in one appeal the issue of who, if anyone, should assert the cause of action. Rather than simply affirming it might also have remanded to the District Court for further consideration of who, if anyone, would be a proper plaintiff. Or by dictum or supervisory order it could have given some guidance to the District Court to be employed by it upon reconsideration of the motions. In short, it could have entered such orders as justice might require, bearing in mind that the most likely beneficiaries of any recovery on plaintiff’s cause of action would be the creditors of the bankrupt estate.
But because of the misunderstanding at the appellate level, and the subsequent response by the District Court (which was not a reconsideration on the merits but a denial on the ground it had already denied the motions), followed by the majority’s action on this second appeal, the issues that the first panel thought it need not reach can never have appellate review.
The first panel is not to be faulted. The facts are confusing, the records fragmentary, some of the papers barely legible, and the briefs of little help. The precise history spelled out by Judge Gordon is the result not of what is apparent but of laborious pick and shovel work on his part. The plaintiff is to be faulted, and the majority do that with vigor. They overlook, however, that Shell was chargeable with the same knowledge of the facts as was plaintiff’s counsel, and is the beneficiary of an affirmance (on the first appeal) which knocked out Burkett as plaintiff but which contains a recital or predicate that Shell knew to be incorrect. Shell perceived that it had no duty to call to the deciding panel’s attention that the *1318footnote was not accurate. Having failed to speak, it then considered that, while enjoying the benefit of the unconditional affirmance, its silence was neither bar nor hindrance to urging dismissal of the second appeal, thereby removing other possible plaintiffs. I am not willing to say in a one-judge dissenting opinion, and I do not say, that Shell’s actions were improper. But I do say that we need not confer upon Shell affirmative benefit from its silence in the face of what it knew to be a judicial misconception of the overall posture of the case.
Perhaps the cause of action should not be asserted at all, or under bankruptcy law cannot now be asserted, or if asserted it may be wholly lacking in merit. But these are matters which ought to be settled by judicial decision, not by mischance. The victims, if there are any, are the creditors in bankruptcy.