Court Opinion

ID: 9482378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:48:17.227848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:56.955505
License: Public Domain

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur wholeheartedly in the court’s judgment and in Parts I, II-A, and II-C of the opinion. However, because neither the bankruptcy court nor the BAP expressly rested its holding on the Moodys’ failure to overcome the presumption of receipt, I believe that we should address the further question — to which the parties have devoted almost complete attention — of whether the Moodys’ actual knowledge of the bankruptcy sufficed to put them at risk for failing to meet the filing deadline. I would answer that question in the affirmative.
I
Even assuming that the Moodys did not receive actual notice, their arguments still must fail. Both this court and the BAP have previously held that a creditor’s actual knowledge of a debtor’s bankruptcy does indeed suffice to put that creditor on notice of the filing deadline for a nondischarge-ability complaint. See, e.g., Price II, 871 F.2d at 99; Ricketts, 80 B.R. at 497; Price I, 79 B.R. at 891-93; Rhodes, 61 B.R. at *208630; see also In re Alton, 64 B.R. 221, 224 (Bankr.M.D.Fla.1986), aff'd, 837 F.2d 457 (11th Cir.1988) (per curiam); cf. In re Gregory, 705 F.2d 1118, 1123 (9th Cir.1983). We have also rejected the claim that such inquiry notice is inadequate to put the creditor at risk as a matter of due process. See In re Coastal Alaska Lines, Inc., 920 F.2d 1428, 1430-31 (9th Cir.1990); Price II, 871 F.2d at 99; Gregory, 705 F.2d at 1122-23.
The Moodys nonetheless insist that Price I and similar cases are distinguishable. According to their reading, Price I stands for the proposition that actual knowledge of the bankruptcy proceedings constitutes sufficient inquiry notice of the bar date for unscheduled creditors but not for scheduled creditors. Because the Moodys themselves are a scheduled creditor, they contend that Price I does not apply and that only actual notice will satisfy the Bankruptcy Rules. The bankruptcy court and the BAP both rejected this argument, however, and I similarly would reject it for four reasons.
1
First, despite the Moodys’ contentions, Price I did not base its holding on a distinction between scheduled and unscheduled creditors. It only mentioned the difference in the course of distinguishing a case that the appellant there had cited and upon which the Moodys similarly rely: In re Schwartz & Meyers, 64 B.R. 948 (Bankr.S.D.N.Y.1986). Even then, the Price I court did not rely upon the scheduled-unscheduled distinction as its reason for not following Schwartz & Meyers. Rather, the court found the case before it critically different for another reason.
In Schwartz & Meyers, the Southern District of New York held that actual notice under Rule 4007(c) is the “necessary predicate and trigger to the running of the 60 day [complaint filing] period” and that when the bankruptcy court fails to give that notice, the filing period never commences and thus cannot expire. Id. at 953. In support of its holding, the court opined that “creditors have a right to assume they will receive all statutory notices.” Id.
The claimant in Price I was not permitted to benefit from this holding because of a factual difference between the two cases. In Schwartz & Meyers, the initial notice distributed by the bankruptcy clerk accidentally failed to advise all the scheduled creditors of the last day upon which to file a section 523(c) complaint. After expiration of what should have been the relevant sixty days, the clerk mailed an amended notice, confessing the error and granting a new sixty days. The Schwartz & Meyers court held that the second sixty days was the relevant filing period.
The claimant in Price I was not permitted to benefit from this holding because there had been no similar blanket error by the bankruptcy clerk in his case. Rather, the claimant’s failure to receive actual notice in Price I “was the result of the debt- or’s failure to properly schedule the [claimant] and the [claimant’s] failure to ensure protection of his claim by making an inquiry into the bankruptcy proceedings.” Price I, 79 B.R. at 890-91. In short, the relevant distinction between Schwartz & Meyers on the one hand and Price I and this appeal on the other concerns the reason for the creditor’s lack of notice, not his status as a scheduled or unscheduled creditor. When lack of notice is partially attributable to the creditor’s own delinquency, his rights are justifiably at risk. A creditor with actual knowledge of the bankruptcy “must inquire as to the bar date for filing a nondischargeability complaint.” Id. at 891. Here, as in Price I, the bankruptcy clerk apparently committed no error.
2
Second, this court has affirmed Price I in Price II, 871 F.2d 97 (9th Cir.1989). In so doing, we made no mention of the distinction between scheduled and unscheduled creditors. Rather, we simply held that “it is incumbent on the creditor to institute an action to have the debt declared exempt from the bankruptcy proceedings, provided that he has notice or actual knowledge that the debtor is in bankruptcy. If the creditor fails to act, the debt is dis*209charged.” Price II, 871 F.2d at 98 (emphasis added); see also id. at 99 (“The fact that Price failed to list Lompa as a creditor did not relieve Lompa of his obligation to take timely action to protect his claim.”). Price II is directly on point and warrants affirmance here.
3
Third, even if we were to accept the Moodys’ argument that the Price decisions are distinguishable because the Moodys are a scheduled creditor and the claimant in Price was not, other cases have not recognized that distinction as controlling.
In Gregory, for example, this court rejected the argument of a claimant who, like the Moodys, was a scheduled state-court judgment creditor and who insisted that actual knowledge of the bankruptcy proceedings was inadequate to put him on notice of the deadline by which he had to object to confirmation of the bankruptcy plan. We explained:
When the holder of a large, unsecured claim such as [the claimant here] receives any notice from the bankruptcy court that its debtor has initiated bankruptcy proceedings, it is under constructive or inquiry notice that its claim may be affected, and it ignores the proceedings to which the notice refers at its peril.
Gregory, 705 F.2d at 1123. Even more on point, on facts strikingly similar to those at issue here, the BAP has held that a scheduled judgment creditor who has actual knowledge of the debtor’s bankruptcy is indeed on inquiry notice of the filing deadline for a section 523(c) complaint. See Rhodes, 61 B.R. at 630; see also Price I, 79 B.R. at 893 (favorably citing Rhodes).
The Fifth Circuit reached a similar conclusion in Neeley v. Murchison, 815 F.2d 345 (5th Cir.1987), a decision that was approvingly cited in both Price I and Price II. See Price I, 79 B.R. at 892; Price II, 871 F.2d at 99. In rejecting the appeal of a scheduled judgment creditor, Neeley held that “§ 523(c) of the Code, which Rule 4007 is designed to implement, places a heavy burden on the creditor to protect his rights: a debt of the type presented here is automatically discharged unless the creditor requests a determination of dischargeability” in a timely fashion. Neeley, 815 F.2d at 347.1
4
Finally, the Bankruptcy Code and Rules themselves articulate no appreciable distinction between scheduled and unscheduled creditors for purposes of determining what constitutes sufficient notice of the filing deadline for nondischargeability complaints. If Congress had intended to make such a distinction, it certainly could have done so.2
I do not mean to suggest that there is no meaningful distinction between these two classes of creditors; the bankruptcy court clearly is required to give actual notice of the bar date to scheduled creditors, whereas unscheduled creditors usually must fend for themselves. The question here, however, is whether any meaningful distinction *210persists in the case of a scheduled creditor who has not received actual notice if (a) the bankruptcy court has done all in its power to provide that notice and (b) the creditor has timely and independent knowledge that his rights are at risk and yet does not act in time to protect them. I would hold that it does not. The case law supports that holding, and the Bankruptcy Code and Rules do not contradict it. When a scheduled creditor is on inquiry notice, the function of the notice requirement has been served, and the creditor may not hold back his complaint in reliance upon actual notice to which he is admittedly entitled but which, though sent, may fail to arrive.
II
In light of the foregoing, I would hold that the Moodys had inquiry notice of the bar date through their actual knowledge of Bucknum’s bankruptcy and that such notice is sufficient to satisfy the law’s notice requirement.

. The facts in Neeley were substantially similar to those in Schwartz & Meyers: the bankruptcy court’s clerk provided actual notice to the creditors but inadvertently failed to fill in a blank on the notice form to indicate the bar date. The Neeley court concluded that the creditor’s untimely complaint was still barred and expressly rejected the reasoning of Schwartz & Meyers in the process. Neeley, 815 F.2d at 347. I cite Neeley here only for its holding that a scheduled creditor with inquiry notice cannot plead ignorance of the bar date. I express no opinion on Neeley’s rejection of Schwartz & Meyers or on its determination that a creditor can still be on notice even when the bankruptcy clerk is largely to blame.

. Nor do I read section 523(a)(3)(B) as establishing such a distinction. That provision expressly provides that actual knowledge of the debtor’s bankruptcy will bar an unscheduled judgment creditor (with a claim like the Mood-ys) from filing an untimely challenge to the discharge of his claim. 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(3)(B) (1988). It does not say, however, that actual knowledge will not bar a scheduled creditor from filing an untimely challenge. See Neeley, 815 F.2d at 347. Nor may one infer from the absence of an analogous provision relating to scheduled creditors that their situation differs. Congress may not have seen the need for such a provision since scheduled creditors are presumed to receive actual notice and the problem of what to do when they do not may have been overlooked.