Court Opinion

ID: 9686577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:56:27.204568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:20.435919
License: Public Domain

KATZ, Bankruptcy Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. I believe the reversal is based on the proposition that the trial court should have decided this matter on the theories advanced in In re Davidoff, 351 F.Supp. 440 (S.D.N.Y.1972), rather than *63those advanced in In re County Green Ltd. Partnership, 438 F.Supp. 693 (W.D.Va. 1977). Both of those cases interpret identical sections of the Uniform Commercial Code in question here, but reach different results. Both cases were decided by one-judge district courts, reviewing the decisions of a bankruptcy judge. In reality this amounts to a review of a trial court decision by another trial court.
In view of the fact that no court in Arizona has passed on this issue heretofore, I believe that the decision of the trial judge sitting in that jurisdiction must be given great deference and ought to be affirmed unless the judge’s decision is an irrational one, and clearly wrong. Hurst v. Dare to be Great, Inc., 474 F.2d 483 (9th Cir. 1973).
Unless there are clues as to the interpretation of the law by the courts of the state, courts of appeal ought not to reverse the trial court’s determination of the meaning of the law.
In Priest v. American Smelting & Refining Co., 409 F.2d 1229 (9th Cir. 1969), the court reversed the trial court because it found clues in dicta and other works indicating that if the state were presented with the precise question presented it would probably rule contrary to the ruling of the trial court. No such clues are in existence here.
While I might agree that Davidoff may be the better reasoned opinion on this matter, I cannot find that the trial court was clearly wrong or reached an irrational decision, and I therefore would accord substantial deference to the trial judge’s interpretation of state law, Lewis v. Anderson, 615 F.2d 778 (9th Cir. 1979), and would affirm.