Court Opinion

ID: 9489033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:03:28.488997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:16.307672
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Senior Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the result and all of the fine opinion authored by Judge Weis, except the inclusion of note one. It matters to me that OB/GYN conceded that a credit was due.
I am troubled generally by this type of dispute being resolved by the Bankruptcy Courts. The issue was pending in the state court because Dr. Six on June 22, 1992, had filed a motion in state court to satisfy, or obtain relief from the February 1991 judgment — the issue later decided by the Bankruptcy Court. Dr. Six’s brief in state court argued that the December 14, 1990, foreclosure judgment and the February 12, 1991, final judgment in favor of the bank for $1,838,196.02 had been satisfied by the foreclosure sale. The state court granted Dr. Six’s motion to stay execution on the stock.
In March, 1993, OB/GYN moved in state court for summary judgment on the pending motions. Dr. Six then filed his Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition. Had the state court *458been given the opportunity, it would have decided the very issue decided below by the Bankruptcy Court. That could have happened if the Bankruptcy Court had abstained as permitted by 28 U.S.C. § 1334(c)(1) or (2).
In my view this is clearly a case where the federal court should have abstained, although I acknowledge abstention is the exception, not the rule. See 28 U.S.C. § 1334(c). In Colorado River Water Conser. Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 818-20, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 1246-47, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976), the Court held there can be good reasons for abstaining, such as existing state court proceedings between the same parties having the same issue, the inconvenience of the federal forum, the avoidance of piecemeal litigation, the source of law being state rather than federal, and whether the state law can adequately protect the party seeking federal jurisdiction.
There is one additional reason why I think this particular case should have been handled by the Florida State Circuit Court. I am troubled by a case where a mortgage was foreclosed against property, the debt was $1,838,196.02, the bid by the creditor was $1,200,000, and the state court entered a judgment for the creditor against the debtor in the sum of $1,838,196.02.
It is Obvious that the state court judge who signed this judgment was misled.1 The first lesson a young lawyer learns is that judges are busy people, that the judges rely on lawyers, and one never sends a judge an order or judgment that is incorrect. One does not even have to be a lawyer to know that a deficiency judgment can only be for the amount of debt less the amount of the bid at the foreclosure sale. If the Bankruptcy Court had abstained in this ease and referred the parties back to the state court, an appropriate reckoning could have been had.
Although I concur in the result and the opinion, I am troubled by both the failure of the Bankruptcy Court to abstain and the lawyering in the state court proceeding.

. The lawyers appearing for the parties in this court are not the lawyers who handled the case in state court.