Court Opinion

ID: 9404714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-23 22:00:40.598224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:16.460351
License: Public Domain

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                                                             [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 20-12547
                           ____________________

        IN RE: MOSAIC MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC.,
                                                                 Debtor.
        ___________________________________________________
        UNITED STATES TRUSTEE REGION 21,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee
                                                       Cross-Appellant,
        versus
        BAST AMRON LLP,
                                                    Defendant-Appellant
                                                        Cross-Appellee.
                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                 20-12547

                        D.C. Docket No. 16-bk-20833-EPK
                           ____________________

        Before JORDAN, BRASHER, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
        ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:
               In this appeal after remand from the Supreme Court, we ad-
        dress the appropriate remedy for the constitutional violation iden-
        tiﬁed in Siegel v. Fitzgerald, 596 U.S. __, 142 S. Ct. 1770 (2022). We
        received supplemental brieﬁng and held another oral argument on
        the remedy issues.
                                            I.
                In 2008, Debtors Mosaic Management Group, Inc., Mosaic
        Alternative Assets, Ltd., and Paladin Settlements, Inc. ﬁled for
        Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of Florida, a “UST
        district” in which the U.S. Trustee program operates. In June 2017,
        the bankruptcy court conﬁrmed a joint Chapter 11 plan, under
        which most of the Debtors’ assets were transferred to an Invest-
        ment Trust managed by an Investment Trustee.
                In September 2019, the Investment Trustee ﬁled a motion
        requesting a determination of the Investment Trust’s quarterly fee
        liability and seeking a reimbursement of its overpayment of those
        fees. Among other arguments, the Investment Trustee argued
        that Congress violated constitutional tax and bankruptcy uni-
        formity requirements when it passed the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act
        of 2017 (the “2017 Amendment”), which temporarily increased
        fees for the largest debtors in Chapter 11 cases in UST districts. The
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        20-12547               Opinion of the Court                         3

        purpose of the 2017 Amendment was to address a dwindling U.S.
        Trustee program budget resulting from declining bankruptcy ﬁl-
        ings and to fund bankruptcy judgeships. Bankruptcy Judgeship Act
        of 2017, Pub. L. No. 115-72, sec. 1004(a), § 1930(a)(6), 131 Stat.
        1224, 1232; H.R. Rep. No. 115-130, at 7–9 (2017), as reprinted in 2017
        U.S.C.C.A.N. 154, 159. From 2018 through 2022, if the U.S. Trustee
        System Fund had a balance of less than $200 million in the prior
        ﬁscal year, the 2017 Amendment provided that the “quarterly fee
        payable for a quarter in which disbursements equal or exceed
        $1,000,000 shall be the lesser of 1 percent of such disbursements or
        $250,000.” Pub. L. No. 115-72, sec. 1004(a), § 1930(a)(6), 131 Stat.
        at 1232. Otherwise, the existing fee schedule remained. In contrast
        to this amendment to 11 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(6) governing fees in the
        UST districts, the 2017 Amendment did not explicitly amend 11
        U.S.C. § 1930(a)(7) which governs fees in the six Bankruptcy Ad-
        ministrator (“BA districts”) in Alabama and North Carolina. Sec-
        tion 1930(a)(7) provided that “the Judicial Conference of the United
        States may require the debtor in a case under chapter 11 of title 11
        to pay fees equal to those imposed by paragraph (6) of this subsec-
        tion.” 11 U.S.C. § 1930(a)(7). Thus, the Act did not explicitly re-
        quire a comparable increase of the fees in the six BA districts that
        are not part of the U.S. Trustee program. The Judicial Conference,
        which oversees the BA districts, did not impose in the BA districts
        the increased quarterly fee provision until September 2018 and
        then only for cases ﬁled on or after October 1, 2018.
               Although the bankruptcy court denied most of the motion,
        it held that the 2017 Amendment created a partial uniformity
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        4                           Opinion of the Court                        20-12547

        problem because 2% of the fees collected in the UST districts were
        to be paid to the general U.S. Treasury fund, which would oﬀset
        the cost of a temporary bankruptcy judgeship in a BA district. The
        court ordered the U.S. Trustee to credit the Investment Trustee a
        sum equal to 2% of the quarterly fees paid since January 1, 2018.
        The court rejected the Investment Trustee’s other challenges to the
        increased quarterly fees.
               The parties 1 received authorization to ﬁle a direct appeal to
        this Court and we issued an opinion aﬃrming in part and reversing
        in part. In re: Mosaic Mgmt. Grp., Inc., 22 F.4th 1291 (11th Cir. 2022),
        vacated sub nom. Bast Amron LLP v. United States Trustee Region 21, 142
        S. Ct. 2862 (2022). We held that the 2017 Amendment properly
        applied to a case that was pending and conﬁrmed prior to the Act’s
        enactment because Congress clearly expressed its intent to this ef-
        fect. We also held that the 2017 Amendment does not violate sub-
        stantive due process and is not a tax subject to the Tax Uniformity
        Clause. Finally, we held that the 2017 Amendment presents no vi-
        olation of the Bankruptcy Uniformity Clause.
              Subsequently, the Supreme Court addressed the Amend-
        ment and held that it violated the uniformity requirement of the

        1 The law firm Bast Amron was substituted for the Investment Trustee before
        we issued our first opinion in this case. Bast Amron thus stands in the shoes
        of the Investment Trustee, who in turn stood in the shoes of the Debtors in
        this bankruptcy case. To avoid confusion with the U.S. Trustee, the appellee
        in this case, we will hereafter refer to the appellant parties to this appeal as the
        Debtors, which also better describes their capacity in this bankruptcy case.
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        20-12547                Opinion of the Court                         5

        Bankruptcy Clause, abrogating our opinion to the extent it held
        that there had been no violation of the Bankruptcy Uniformity
        Clause. Siegel v. Fitzgerald, 596 U.S. __, 142 S. Ct. 1770 (2022). How-
        ever, the Court reserved decision on the issue of the appropriate
        remedy, commenting that the parties raised “a host of legal and
        administrative concerns with each of the remedies proposed, in-
        cluding the practicality, feasibility, and equities of each proposal;
        their costs; and potential waivers by nonobjecting debtors.” 142 S.
        Ct. at 1783. Several days later, the Supreme Court granted the
        Debtors’ petition for writ of certiorari in this case, vacated our
        judgment, and remanded for further consideration in light of
        Siegel. Bast Amron LLP v. U.S. Tr. Region 21, 142 S. Ct. 2862 (2022).
                                          II.
                The issue before us is the appropriate remedy for the consti-
        tutional violation the Supreme Court found in Siegel. The Debtors
        in this case—being debtors in a U.S. Trustee district—have been re-
        quired to pay higher fees than a comparable debtor in one of the
        six BA districts in Alabama or North Carolina. We now know, from
        the Supreme Court decision in Siegel, that the diﬀerential treatment
        of comparable debtors constituted a violation of the uniformity re-
        quirement of the Bankruptcy Clause. Debtors in this case seek a
        refund of the diﬀerential between what they have paid and the
        lesser amount that a comparable debtor in one of the BA districts
        paid. That diﬀerential persisted during 2018 and thereafter until
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        6                         Opinion of the Court                      20-12547

        Congress, becoming aware of the problem, enacted the 2020 Act 2
        which presumably ended the diﬀerent treatment. Thus, the issue
        before us is whether the Debtors are entitled to such a refund, and
        if not, what remedy is appropriate. 3
                                             III.
                When a statute unconstitutionally confers a beneﬁt on one
        class over another, courts have two options. First, they can declare
        the statute “a nullity and order that its beneﬁts not extend to the
        class that the legislature intended to beneﬁt” Sessions v. Morales-San-
        tana, 582 U.S. 47, 72 (2017) (quoting Califano v. Westcott, 443 U.S. 76,
        89 (1979)). As a second option, the court “may extend the coverage
        of the statute to include those who are aggrieved by exclusion.” Id.
        Generally, extension of the beneﬁt, rather than its nulliﬁcation, is
        the proper course. Id. at 74. Because the statute at issue in this case
        imposes a burden instead of providing a beneﬁt, the two options in
        this case are: 1) nullify the burden (the fee increase); or 2) extend
        the burden (the fee increase) to those initially excluded (the BA dis-
        tricts). Although the right for equal treatment is rooted in the Con-
        stitution, the remedy for its violation is not found there. Id. at 73.

        2 The Bankruptcy Administration Improvement Act of 2020 (“2020 Act”) was
        enacted by Congress, effective January 12, 2021. Pub. L. 116-325, 134 Stat.
        5086. It effectively mandated that the fee increases that had been enacted in
        the 2017 Amendment shall apply not only in the U.S. Trustee districts, but also
        in the BA districts. Id. sec. 3(d)(2).
        3 At oral argument the government expressly disavowed sovereign immunity,
        so we need not address that matter.
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        20-12547                   Opinion of the Court                                7

                It is well established that in formulating the remedy for con-
        stitutional violations like this one, courts should be guided by con-
        gressional intent. Id. at 73 (“The choice between these outcomes
        is governed by the legislature’s intent . . . ”); Levin v. Com. Energy,
        Inc., 560 U.S. 413, 426–427 (2010) (“On ﬁnding unlawful discrimina-
        tion, . . . courts may attempt, within the bounds of their institu-
        tional competence, to implement what the legislature would have
        willed had it been apprised of the constitutional inﬁrmity.”); Ayotte
        v. Planned Parenthood of N. New Eng., 546 U.S. 320, 330 (2006) (“the
        touchstone for any decision about remedy is legislative intent”);
        United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 246 (2005) (“We answer the re-
        medial question by looking to legislative intent.”); Heckler v.
        Mathews, 465 U.S. 728, 739 n.5 (1984) (“the court should not, of
        course, ‘use its remedial powers to circumvent the intent of the
        legislature’”) (quoting Westcott, 443 U.S. at 94 (Powell, J., concur-
        ring in part)); Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 366 (1970) (Harlan,
        J., concurring) (observing that there is good reason for courts to
        make necessary statutory repairs without impairing the legislative
        goals). 4

        4 This analysis has been applied to guide the remedy whether the underlying
        infringement was a violation of the Equal Protection clause (Iowa-Des Moines
        Nat’l Bank v. Bennett, 284 U.S. 239 (1931), and Mathews); a violation of the uni-
        formity of tax treatment as between local and interstate commerce, as implied
        in the Commerce Clause (McKesson Corp. v. Div. of Alcoholic Beverages & To-
        bacco, 496 U.S. 18 (1990)); a violation of the First Amendment (Barr v. Am. Ass’n
        of Pol. Consultants, 140 S. Ct. 2335 (2020)); or a violation of the Sixth Amend-
        ment right to a jury trial (Booker).
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        8                       Opinion of the Court                  20-12547

                When determining which remedy the legislature would
        have chosen, courts are to make two additional assessments. Mo-
        rales-Santana, 582 U.S. at 75 (citing Welsh, 398 U.S. at 365). The ﬁrst
        is the court should “measure the intensity of commitment” to the
        “main rule, not the exception.” Id. The second is that they should
        “consider the degree of potential disruption of the statutory
        scheme that would occur by extension as opposed to abrogation.”
        Id. In Morales-Santana, the Court was faced with a statute’s dispar-
        ate treatment of the residency requirements of unwed mother and
        unwed fathers when passing citizenship to their children born
        abroad. Unwed citizen mothers were only required to have one
        year of residence in the United States while all other parents were
        required to have ﬁve. In deciding whether to extend the beneﬁt of
        a shorter residency period required of unwed citizen mothers to
        unwed citizen fathers, the Court examined other portions of the
        citizenship law, and noted the congressional recognition of the
        longstanding importance of physical presence in citizenship law as
        the indicator of attachment to a country. Id. The Court also stated
        that the “potential for ‘disruption of the statutory scheme’ is large.”
        Id. Because both factors pointed against extending the shorter res-
        idency exception, the Court nulliﬁed the favorable treatment for
        unwed mothers.
                                             IV.
               Debtors in this case argue that they are entitled to a refund
        of the increased portion of the trustee fees—i.e. the diﬀerence be-
        tween the fees charged to them and the fees charged to comparable
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        20-12547                Opinion of the Court                       9

        debtors in the BA districts—that they have been required to pay
        throughout 2018 and thereafter until Congress equalized the fees
        in the 2020 Act. They argue that strong Supreme Court precedent
        supports such refunds as the appropriate remedy. For this proposi-
        tion, Debtors rely upon Iowa-Des Moines National Bank v. Bennett,
        284 U.S. 239 (1931), as representative of a long line of Supreme
        Court cases holding that a state’s unequal taxation of comparable
        and competing taxpayers violates the Equal Protection Clause, and
        holding that the taxpayer who was required to pay the higher, dis-
        criminatory tax is entitled to a refund. Although acknowledging a
        state court could have removed the discrimination “by collecting
        the additional taxes from the favored competitors,” id. at 247, the
        Bennett Court held that the taxpayer who paid the higher taxes was
        entitled to a refund. The Court held:
               But it is well settled that a taxpayer who has been sub-
               jected to discriminatory taxation through the favor-
               ing of others in violation of federal law cannot be re-
               quired himself to assume the burden of seeking an
               increase of the taxes which the others should have
               paid. Nor may he be remitted to the necessity of
               awaiting such action by the state oﬃcials upon their
               own initiative.
        Id. at 247 (citations omitted).
              Disagreeing with the Debtors, the U.S. Trustee’s primary ar-
        gument is that refunds are not the appropriate remedy in this case
        because Congress has already provided prospective relief in the
        2020 Act. The U.S. Trustee argues that Congress, in the 2020 Act,
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         10                          Opinion of the Court                        20-12547

         has already chosen the remedy option of extending the burden (the
         fee increase) to the previously excluded BA districts, thus rejecting
         the other option which would have nulliﬁed the burden (the fee
         increase) and warranted the refunds which Debtors seek.5 The U.S.
         Trustee asserts that this remedial option is the one which will im-
         plement the very clear congressional intention all along that the
         2017 fee increase was intended to apply to all federal judicial dis-
         tricts, including the BA districts. 6
                Recognizing that its primary argument—i.e. prospective re-
         lief only—fails to remedy the inequality that would remain during
         the time between 2018 and January 12, 2021 (the eﬀective date of
         the 2020 Act, which cured the inequality prospectively), the U.S.
         Trustee makes a secondary, alternative argument, as follows. The
         alternative argument: even if retroactive relief were appropriate,

         5 The U.S. Trustee thus relies on the above-described framework that the
         Supreme Court has established for the determination of the appropriate rem-
         edy for constitutional violations like this. As noted above, a reviewing court
         should choose between two options: nullify the burden (the fee increase) or
         extend the burden (the fee increase) to those previously excluded (the BA dis-
         tricts), the choice to be guided by congressional intent.
         6 In support of this congressional intention, the U.S. Trustee refers to the ev-
         idence of this congressional intention as recited in this Court’s first opinion in
         this case, In re Mosaic, 22 F.4th at 1310-19, as well as the 2020 Act itself which
         chose to extend the fee increase to the BA districts, see Pub. L. 116-325, sec.
         3(d)(2), § 1930, 134 Stat. 5086, 5088, and its legislative finding, see id. at 5086
         (Congress explicitly “confirm[ed] the longstanding intention of Congress that
         quarterly fee requirements remain consistent across all federal judicial dis-
         tricts.”).
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         20-12547               Opinion of the Court                       11

         the remedy should not be refunds to comparable debtors in the U.S.
         Trustee districts like the Debtors here, but rather should be retro-
         active collections from comparable debtors in the BA districts who
         failed to pay the increased fees during 2018-2021 (i.e. what the par-
         ties here refer to as the “clawback”).
                 We address ﬁrst the U.S. Trustee’s alternative argument be-
         cause it is readily rejected. This Court does not have the authority
         to “claw back” additional fees from comparable debtors in the BA
         districts. Neither those debtors nor the BA Administrators who
         would prosecute the “clawback” are parties before this Court; thus
         we have no jurisdiction over them. Nor is the Judicial Conference—
         which would have the authority to order such “clawbacks”—a
         party before this Court. And some of the BA districts are located
         outside the Eleventh Circuit. Thus, the simple fact is that we can-
         not implement this alternative resolution suggested by the U.S.
         Trustee. And, as noted above, the Supreme Court in Bennett and
         several other cases have made it clear that the party “who has been
         subjected to [discrimination] through favoring others in violation
         of federal law cannot be required himself to assume the burden of
         seeking an increase of the taxes which other should have paid.” 284
         U.S. at 247. Of course, Congress or the Judicial Conference might
         have authority to order such “clawbacks,” but there is no sugges-
         tion that either has moved to do so, or intends to do so. Indeed, as
         noted, Congress in the 2020 Act was aware of the constitutional
         violations and did choose the remedy of extending the burden (the
         increased fee) to the BA districts. However, Congress remedied the
         problem only prospectively and did not order such “clawbacks.”
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         12                     Opinion of the Court                 20-12547

         And, in Bennett, we are instructed that parties like the Debtors here
         “may [not] be remitted to the necessity of awaiting such action by
         the state oﬃcials upon their own initiative.” Id. Moreover, it is al-
         together unclear whether, or to what extent, even Congress or the
         Judicial Conference could eﬀect such “clawbacks” in light of the
         fact that, by now, the relevant bankruptcy estates have probably
         made substantial distributions or undergone other substantial
         change, or even closed.
                 Having rejected the U.S. Trustee’s alternative argument, we
         turn to address its primary argument—i.e. that prospective-only re-
         lief is appropriate. The U.S. Trustee attempts to distinguish the
         Bennett decision and the other state tax cases upon which Debtors
         rely. The U.S. Trustee argues that in those cases, the taxpayers seek-
         ing refunds had been forced to pay the tax initially; they had no
         “meaningful opportunity to withhold payment and to obtain a pre-
         deprivation determination of the tax assessment’s validity.”
         McKesson Corp., 496 U.S. at 38. The U.S. Trustee argues that this
         case is in sharp contrast: here the debtors could have challenged the
         constitutionality of the increase—employing either routine motion
         or adversary proceeding—before the ﬁrst installment became due
         in the ﬁrst quarter of 2018. They rely upon the dicta in McKesson
         suggesting that the refunds ordered in that case and the long line
         of Supreme Court cases upon which McKesson (and the Debtors
         here) rely were dependent upon the fact that no meaningful pre-
         deprivation remedy was available. See id. at 38 n.21 (“In contrast,
         if a State chooses not to secure payments under duress and instead
         oﬀers a meaningful opportunity for taxpayers to withhold
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         20-12547               Opinion of the Court                        13

         contested tax assessments and to challenge their validity in a pre-
         deprivation hearing, payments tendered may be deemed ‘volun-
         tary.’ The availability of a predeprivation hearing constitutes a pro-
         cedural safeguard against unlawful deprivations suﬃcient by itself
         to satisfy the Due Process Clause, and taxpayers cannot complain
         if they fail to avail themselves of this procedure. Where voluntary
         payment of a tax is knowingly made pursuant to an illegal demand,
         recovery of that payment may be denied”) (citation and quotation
         marks omitted).
                 Thus, the U.S. Trustee argues that the appropriate remedy
         in this case is a prospective-only remedy, which remedy Congress
         has already provided in the 2020 Act. It argues that there is prece-
         dent for such a prospective-only remedy, citing Morales-Santana,
         582 U.S. at 77, and that this is the remedy that would implement
         congressional intent.
                 The U.S. Trustee’s argument based on the McKesson dicta
         and the availability of a predeprivation remedy has been squarely
         rejected by the Supreme Court. In Reich v. Collins, 513 U.S. 106
         (1994), the State of Georgia had exempted from the state income
         tax retirement beneﬁts paid by the state but not retirement beneﬁts
         paid by the federal government or any other employer. After the
         Supreme Court in Davis v. Michigan Department of Treasury, 489 U.S.
         803 (1989), held that such a tax scheme violated the constitutional
         intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine, Georgia repealed its ex-
         emption for state retirees, but did not allow refunds for federal re-
         tirees for the open years before Davis during which the diﬀerential
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         14                     Opinion of the Court               20-12547

         in tax had existed. A federal retiree challenged that unequal tax
         treatment, relying on the same cases on which the Debtors here
         rely, including McKesson and Bennett. In rejecting the federal re-
         tiree’s claim for refunds, the Georgia Supreme Court held that
         McKesson, Bennett, and similar cases that required refunds would
         not apply and refunds would not be required if Georgia law pro-
         vided a meaningful opportunity to litigate the validity of the chal-
         lenged tax in a predeprivation process. Concluding that Georgia
         provided “ample” predeprivation procedures, the Georgia Su-
         preme Court denied the refunds sought by the federal retiree. The
         Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the Georgia Su-
         preme Court:
               The Georgia Supreme Court is no doubt right that,
               under McKesson, Georgia has the ﬂexibility to main-
               tain an exclusively predeprivation remedial scheme,
               so long as that scheme is “clear and certain.” . . . In
               this regard, the Georgia Supreme Court’s reliance on
               Georgia’s predeprivation procedures was entirely be-
               side the point (and thus error), because even assum-
               ing the constitutional adequacy of these proce-
               dures—an issue on which we express no view—no
               reasonable taxpayer would have thought that they
               represented, in light of the apparent applicability of
               the refund statute, the exclusive remedy for unlawful
               taxes.
         513 U.S. at 111-12 (emphasis in original).
               In Newsweek, Inc. v. Florida Department of Revenue, 522 U.S.
         442 (1998), the Court again rejected the same argument based on
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         20-12547               Opinion of the Court                      15

         the McKesson dicta and the availability of a predeprivation remedy.
         The Florida statutes exempted newspapers but not magazines
         from its sales tax. The Florida Supreme Court held that the diﬀer-
         ential tax treatment violated the First Amendment. However, the
         Department of Revenue rejected Newsweek’s claim for refund, and
         the Florida District Court of Appeals agreed, holding that
         “McKesson is distinguishable because that holding was expressly
         predicated upon the fact that the taxpayer had no meaningful pre-
         deprivation remedy.” Newsweek, Inc. v. Dept. of Rev., 689 So.2d 361,
         363 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1997). Concluding that in Florida, adequate
         predeprivation remedies were available to the taxpayer, the District
         Court of Appeals denied the refund. In vacating the judgment of
         the District Court of Appeals, and granting access to the refund
         procedure, the Supreme Court held: “a State has the ﬂexibility to
         maintain an exclusively predeprivation remedial scheme, so long as
         that scheme is clear and certain.” Id. at 444 (quotations and cita-
         tions omitted; emphasis added).
                Thus, in both Reich and Newsweek the Supreme Court clari-
         ﬁed McKesson, ruling that, in cases of diﬀerential tax treatment of
         comparable taxpayers, the state can remedy the constitutional vio-
         lation by choosing to extend the burden (the tax) to the previously
         favored group. However, because the relevant law and available
         procedures permitted both predeprivation and postdeprivation
         process, both courts held that due process would not permit the
         state to insist on the predeprivation remedy to the exclusion of the
         postdeprivation refund remedy unless the exclusivity of the pre-
         deprivation remedy was clear such that reasonable persons would
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         16                      Opinion of the Court                 20-12547

         not be misled. In other words, except in the unusual context of a
         clear, exclusive predeprivation remedy, the past inequality must be
         accounted for and the disfavored taxpayer is entitled to appropriate
         refunds.
                 Thus, the Supreme Court has squarely rejected the U.S.
         Trustee’s distinction of McKesson, Bennett, and the other state tax
         cases on which Debtors here rely. Just as in Reich and Newsweek, in
         this case also, routine bankruptcy procedures—whether simple
         motion or adversary proceeding—were available both predepriva-
         tion or postdeprivation. That is, Debtors here could have chal-
         lenged the increased fee before paying same in early 2018 (predepri-
         vation) and those same routine procedures were available postdep-
         rivation, as actually utilized by Debtors in this case. In any event,
         it certainly was not clear that the available predeprivation process
         was exclusive. Thus, Reich and Newsweek squarely reject the U.S.
         Trustee’s primary support for prospective relief only—i.e. that
         McKesson-based distinction of the Debtors state tax cases requiring
         refunds in a similar context.
                 The signiﬁcance of Reich and Newsweek for the instant case
         is not limited to their express rejection of the U.S. Trustee’s primary
         argument in support of prospective-only relief. These decisions
         also provide signiﬁcant guidance for this case in that they came to
         the Supreme Court in precisely the same posture that this case
         comes to us. As both Reich and Newsweek came to the Supreme
         Court, the constitutional violation had previously been
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         20-12547                   Opinion of the Court                                17

         established. 7 In both cases, it had already been determined that the
         constitutional violation should be remedied by extending the bur-
         den (the tax) to the previously favored group. 8 In both cases, the
         state courts had denied the refunds that were claimed by the tax-
         payers who had been discriminated against and had had to pay the
         higher taxes during the open years before the tax scheme was
         equalized by extending the tax to the previously favored group. 9
               In other words, in both Reich and Newsweek, the state law
         had chosen to cure the constitutional violation by prospectively ex-
         tending the burden (the tax) to the previously favored group, but

         7 In Reich, the Supreme Court had already determined in Davis v. Michigan
         Department of Treasury, 489 U.S. 803 (1989), that Georgia’s differential treat-
         ment of state retirees and federal retirees violated the Constitution. Reich, 513
         U.S. at 108. In Newsweek, the Florida Supreme Court had already held that
         Florida’s exemption from its sales tax of newspapers but not magazines vio-
         lated the Constitution. Newsweek, 522 U.S. at 442; see also Dept. of Rev. v. Mag-
         azine Publishers of Am., 604 So.2d 459 (Fla. 1992).
         8 In Reich, the Georgia legislature had repealed the exemption from tax for
         newspapers. See Reich, 513 U.S. at 108; see also Reich v. Collins, 422 S.E.2d 846,
         847 (Ga. 1992) (noting that after the Supreme Court in Davis determined that
         Georgia’s differential treatment of state retirees and federal retirees was un-
         constitutional, the Georgia legislature repealed the exemption for state retir-
         ees). In the Newsweek case, the Florida Supreme Court held that Florida’s ex-
         emption for tax for newspapers but not magazines was unconstitutional, and
         held that the proper remedy was to strike the exemption for newspapers. See
         Magazine Publishers, 604 So.2d at 463-64.
         9 See Reich, 513 U.S. at 108 (noting that Georgia repealed the exemption for
         state retirees, but denied refunds for federal retirees). See Newsweek, 522 U.S.
         at 443 (noting that the Florida court had denied refunds for the magazines).
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         18                         Opinion of the Court                      20-12547

         had denied refunds to the taxpayers who had been discriminated
         against. In short, the state law had provided prospective-only relief.
         The Supreme Court reversed, and held that due process required
         refunds.10
                The instant case comes to us in precisely the same posture
         that Reich and Newsweek had come to the Supreme Court:
             • As in Reich and Newsweek, the fact of the constitutional vio-
                 lation in this case has been established. See Siegel, 142 S. Ct.
                 at 1789.
             • As in Reich and Newsweek, Congress has chosen to cure the
                 constitutional violation by prospectively extending the bur-
                 den (the fee increase) to the previously favored group (the
                 BA districts). See the 2020 Act, Pub. L. 116-325, 134 Stat.
                 5086.
             • As in the state court stage of the Reich and Newsweek cases,
                 the U.S. Trustee urges us to approve a prospective-only rem-
                 edy and deny refunds to the Debtors in this case.
                 We conclude that we should follow the guidance of the Su-
         preme Court decisions in Reich and Newsweek and Bennett (and the
         other state tax cases upon which the Debtors rely). We conclude
         that the prospective-only relief urged upon us by the U.S. Trustee
         is not appropriate in this case.

         10 Indeed, the long line of state tax cases mentioned above involved the same
         posture and the same result. See, e.g., McKesson, 496 U.S. at 31 (“The question
         before us is whether prospective relief, by itself, exhausts the requirements of
         federal law. The answer is no”).
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         20-12547               Opinion of the Court                        19

                 We acknowledge the strong evidence of congressional in-
         tention preferring the maintenance of the increased level of fees.
         However, we note that the legislative intention in Reich and
         Newsweek was the same. In Reich, the Georgia legislature had re-
         pealed the exemption for state retirees, indicating its preference for
         the tax over the exemption. The legislative intent was the same,
         but even clearer, in Newsweek. There, the Florida Supreme Court
         had already—well before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Newsweek deci-
         sion in 1998—expressly held that the legislative intent preferred the
         tax over the exemption. See Magazine Publishers, 604 So.2d at 463
         (“Section 212.21 makes it clear that as between the imposition of
         the tax or the granting of an exemption, the tax shall prevail.”).
         Notwithstanding this legislative intent, the Supreme Court held
         that due process required refunds.
                 Of course the result in Reich and Newsweek—and the result
         in this case since we follow Reich and Newsweek—partially imple-
         ments the legislative intent in that the tax was to be maintained in
         the future. Although the refunds ordered by the Supreme Court in
         Reich and Newsweek may have been in tension with the legislative
         intent, such legislative intent cannot overcome the requirements
         of due process. See Newsweek, 522 U.S. at 445 (“due process pre-
         vents [the Department of Revenue] from applying this require-
         ment to taxpayers, like Newsweek, who reasonably relied on the
         apparent availability of a postpayment refund”). Thus, the results
         in Reich and Newsweek allow implementation of as much of the leg-
         islative intent as due process would permit. Similarly, in the instant
         case, our result—requiring refunds, but recognizing future
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         20                          Opinion of the Court                        20-12547

         application of the fee increase, as mandated by Congress in the 2020
         Act—implements as much of the congressional intent as due pro-
         cess permits.
                 The only other support offered by the U.S. Trustee for the
         prospective-only relief that it advocates is its citation to Morales-
         Santana, 582 U.S. at 77, which did provide prospective-only relief
         in a very different context. 11 For several reasons, we conclude that
         we should be guided by Reich, Newsweek, Bennett, and the other
         analogous state tax cases, rather than by Morales-Santana. First, the
         Court in Morales-Santana merely concludes at the end of the opin-
         ion that its ruling “should apply, prospectively, to children born to
         unwed U.S.-citizen mothers.” 582 U.S. at 77. There is no explana-
         tion on the basis of which we could be sure of a governing principle
         of law defining when prospective application is appropriate. Sec-
         ond, and significantly, the instant case is closely analogous to Reich
         and Newsweek, for the reasons fully discussed above, but is very dif-
         ferent from the Morales-Santana case. The right to citizenship issue
         in Morales-Santana is very different from the inequality in trustee
         fees at issue in this case. As Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Alito,
         said in his concurring opinion, it is far from clear whether any
         court, even the Supreme Court, has the power to confer or

         11 The U.S. Trustee also cites the plurality opinion in Barr v. American Associa-
         tion of Political Consultants, 591 U.S. __, 140 S. Ct. 2335, 2355 n.12 (2020), which
         also suggests prospective-only relief. However, like Morales-Santana, the plu-
         rality provides no explanation. Moreover, the prospective-only relief appears
         to have been supported only by the two concurring Justices, plus possibly Jus-
         tice Sotomayor (i.e. a total of only four Justices).
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         20-12547                   Opinion of the Court                              21

         withdraw citizenship on a basis other than as prescribed by Con-
         gress. Id. at 78. Moreover, retrospective application of the Court’s
         ruling would have been extremely harsh. That is, it is virtually un-
         thinkable for the Court to have withdrawn the citizenship from
         children of unwed mothers already born and who had already qual-
         ified for citizenship under the previous one-year residency rule.
                 A third and significant reason prompting us to follow the
         guidance of Reich, Newsweek, and Bennett is that we are also follow-
         ing the “normal rule of retroactive application” of Supreme Court
         decisions. Harper v. Va. Dept. of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86, 97 (1993); see
         also id. at 94 (acknowledging “fundamental rule of retrospective op-
         eration that has governed judicial decisions for near a thousand
         years.”)(cleaned up). This is especially true in this case because the
         rule identified in Siegel was not even a “new” rule which might in
         some circumstances have warranted prospectively-only relief. 12

         12 The risk of this constitutional violation of the Bankruptcy Uniformity
         Clause has been apparent since the Ninth Circuit so ruled. See St. Angelo v.
         Victoria Farms, Inc., 38 F.3d 1525 (9th Cir. 1994), amended by 467 F.3d 969 (9th
         Cir. 1995). That ruling prompted the Judicial Conference and Congress to act
         to avoid this risk. That led to the 2000 legislation which Congress intended to
         ensure that uniform trustee fees would apply in all federal judicial districts—
         both US Trustee and BA districts. See discussion in our earlier opinion in this
         case, 22 F.4th at 1310-19; see also the congressional finding in the 2020 Act
         (“confirm[ing] the longstanding intention of Congress that quarterly fee re-
         quirements remain consistent across all federal judicial districts”). Thus, Con-
         gress has been aware of the constitutional risks of differential trustee fees in
         the IUS Trustee districts, as compared to the BA districts, for more than two
         decades. Accordingly, the Supreme Court’s holding in Siegel did not announce
         a “new” rule.
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         22                          Opinion of the Court                         20-12547

                 Finally, in so holding we reach the same result reached by
         every court to have addressed this issue. The Second Circuit13 and
         the Tenth Circuit14 have ordered refunds for debtors in precisely
         the same context as the Debtors in this case. Although the Second
         Circuit provided no rationale at all, and although the Tenth Circuit
         only noted that it lacked authority over the fees in the BA districts
         and that the Second Circuit had already so ruled, we suspect that
         our sister circuit courts probably were thinking along the lines of
         the analysis we set out in this opinion. The only other court that
         has addressed this issue is In re Circuit City Stores, Inc., 2022 WL
         17722849 (Bankr. E.D. Va. Dec. 15, 2022). The bankruptcy judge
         in that case followed the Second and Tenth Circuits and granted
         refunds to debtors comparable to the Debtors in this case. The
         bankruptcy judge distinguished the Morales-Santana decision and
         relied on the same long line of state tax cases upon which we too
         rely (e.g. Bennett, etc.).

                 The U.S. Trustee offers no analysis or briefing to explain why prospec-
         tive-only relief would be appropriate in this case. See Harper, 509 U.S. at 94-
         102; James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia, 501 U.S. 529 (1991); Richard S. Kay,
         Retroactivity and Prospectivity of Judgments in American Law, 62 AM. J. COMP. L.
         37 (2014). Thus, we follow the “normal” rule and apply the Siegel holding
         retroactively, subject of course to any independent defense—e.g. statutes of
         limitation or sovereign immunity.
         13 In re: Clinton Nurseries, Inc., 53 F.4th 15, 29 (2d Cir. 2022), amending and rein-
         stating 998 F.3d 56, 69-70 (2d Cir. 2021).
         14 In re John Q. Hammons Fall 2006, LLC, No. 20 3203, 2022 WL 3354682 (10th
         Cir. Aug. 15, 2022), reinstating 15 F.4th 1011, 1025-26 (10th Cir. 2021).
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         20-12547                  Opinion of the Court                             23

                For the foregoing reasons,15 we conclude that Reich,
         Newsweek, Bennett, McKesson, and the long line of similar state tax
         cases are closely analogous to the instant case and provide strong
         precedent supporting the refund remedy urged upon us by the
         Debtors. Accordingly, we hold that the appropriate remedy in this
         case for the constitutional violation identified in Siegel is the refunds
         that the Debtors in this case seek. The judgment of the court below
         is vacated, and this case is remanded for further proceedings not
         inconsistent with this opinion.

         VACATED and REMANDED.

         15 The U.S. Trustee suggest no other defense or bar to the refunds that Debt-
         ors seek—e.g. statute of limitations or sovereign immunity. As noted, the U.S.
         Trustee at oral argument affirmatively disavowed any sovereign immunity
         bar.
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         20-12547               BRASHER, J., Concurring                          1

         BRASHER, Circuit Judge, concurring:
                I respectfully concur with the bottom-line result of the ma-
         jority opinion, although I cannot agree with all of its reasoning.
                 When this appeal was last before us, I wrote separately to
         make two points. First, I explained that “the substantial variance in
         fees as between the Trustee and Bankruptcy Administrator districts
         amounts to an unconstitutional lack of uniformity.” In re Mosaic
         Mgmt. Grp., Inc., 22 F.4th 1291, 1328 (11th Cir. 2022) (Brasher, J.,
         concurring). Second, I concluded that the investment trustee’s “re-
         quested remedy—a refund of the higher fees, which were imposed
         in 94% of the districts—is inappropriate because it is demonstrably
         at odds with Congress’s intent.” Id. The Supreme Court reached
         the same conclusion as me on the first issue and remanded for us
         to consider the second issue. See Bast Amron LLP v. United States Tr.
         Region 21., 142 S. Ct. 2862 (2022), and Siegel v. Fitzgerald, 142 S. Ct.
         1770 (2022).
                When a statute creates an unconstitutional disparity in treat-
         ment, “there exist two remedial alternatives.” Califano v. Westcott,
         443 U.S. 76, 89 (1979) (cleaned up) (quoting Welsh v. United States,
         398 U.S. 333, 361 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring in result)). A court
         can level up by extending the favorable treatment to everyone or
         level down by treating everyone like the disfavored class. A court’s
         choice between the two remedies must be guided by legislative in-
         tent. See Sessions v. Morales-Santana, --- U.S. ---, 137 S. Ct. 1678, 1699
         (2017). An intent to level up is the default presumption, but an in-
         tent to level down may be inferred where the favorable treatment
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         2                    [BRASHER, J., Concurring]               20-12547

         was meant to be an “exception” to the “general rule . . . applicable
         to a substantial majority.” Id. at 1701.
                As I explained last time, it is obvious that Congress’s intent
         supports the conclusion that we must level down. See Mosaic Mgmt.
         Grp, 22 F.4th at 1329−30 (Brasher, J., concurring). The favorable
         treatment here was a tiny exception to an otherwise comprehen-
         sive scheme, and it was an accidental exception at that. Id. As a mat-
         ter of equal treatment law, that is where the inquiry ends. We
         should level down, even if such leveling down results in a prospec-
         tive-only remedy or requires joining other parties. I therefore can-
         not agree with the majority’s attempt to distinguish equal treat-
         ment cases, such as Sessions v. Morales-Santana, from this one.
                That said, however, I have since “acquired new wisdom” or
         “more critically, have discarded old ignorance” that leads me to
         change my bottom-line conclusion. Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584,
         611 (2002) (Scalia, J., concurring). Specifically, the investment trus-
         tee has identiﬁed a due process problem with a prospective-only
         remedy, and I believe that the trustee’s due process argument has
         merit.

                When a person has been compelled by law to pay a tax or
         fee, then that person has been deprived of property. To justify that
         deprivation, the government must “satisfy the commands of the
         Due Process Clause.” McKesson Corporation v. Division of Alcoholic
         Beverages and Tobacco, 496 U.S. 18, 36 (1990). In a case like this one,
         the due process clause commands that the government provide
         “meaningful backward-looking relief ” if it has placed a taxpayer
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         20-12547              BRASHER, J., Concurring                        3

         (or, here, a feepayer) “under duress promptly to pay a tax when
         due” without the opportunity to fully litigate its legality. Id. at 31.

                Despite my views of the proper equal treatment remedy, I
         think the investment trustee has a due process right to a refund.
         This is so for two reasons.
                 First, the government provided an opportunity to challenge
         the legality of the fee, and the investment trustee took advantage
         of it. The investment trustee challenged the imposition of the fee
         at the earliest opportunity in the very bankruptcy case in which the
         fee was imposed—this one. Having lost that challenge in the bank-
         ruptcy court, the investment trustee was under a legal obligation
         to pay the fee. This fact—that the investment trustee availed itself
         of a process to challenge the fee—distinguishes it from someone
         who belatedly seeks a refund of a fee that he never contested. It
         would be inconsistent with due process to deny a backwards-look-
         ing remedy when the investment trustee challenged the fee at an
         early opportunity and then paid it under protest.
                Second, a level-up refund remedy is our only option because
         there is no lawful way to implement a backward-looking level-
         down remedy. The creditors and debtors in the favored class of
         bankruptcy cases have their own due process rights that prevent us
         from retroactively assessing higher fees in those cases. Although
         the imposition of a retroactive tax “does not necessarily deny due
         process to those whose taxes are increased,” there is “some tem-
         poral point” beyond which “the retroactive imposition of a signifi-
         cant tax burden may be ‘so harsh and opposed as to transgress the
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         4                   [BRASHER, J., Concurring]              20-12547

         constitutional limitation.’” Id. at 40 n.23 (quoting Welch v. Henry,
         305 U.S. 134, 147 (1938)). I think we have reached that point. Even
         though only a small number of bankruptcy cases would be affected
         by a retroactive fee, too much time has passed to increase the fees
         consistent with due process. This is especially true of bankruptcy
         cases that have already been closed and the estate’s assets distrib-
         uted or reorganized.
               For these reasons, I respectfully concur in the result.