Court Opinion

ID: 9691122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:11:43.904235+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:10.959307
License: Public Domain

MONTALI, Bankruptcy Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached but I cannot join Part II of the opinion because it is dictum. In Part I, we quite properly treat the order on appeal as a declaratory judgment. In Part III, we reverse that redesignated judgment because we have concluded that Bankruptcy Code section 524(a)(2) does not bar appellants’ action before the WCAB.
Part II, on the other hand, focuses on issues extraneous to our holding10 and not *557raised by the parties. As an appellate court, we should not sua sponte raise issues (or non-issues) in order to correct perceived deficiencies in existing case law. See generally, Com-1 Info, Inc. v. Wolkowitz (In re Maximus Computers, Inc.) 278 B.R. 189, 199-200 (9th Cir. BAP 2002) (Montali, J., concurring and dissenting).

. Even if we needed to address the question of whether the discharge injunction could be modified, I would disagree with the majority on the substantive issue. While the authorities are cited properly and the logic of the analysis is sound, the fact is that nothing in *557the Bankruptcy Code prohibits the court from modifying the injunction. Consequently, I believe that Hendrix, Hawxhurst v. Pettibone Corp., 40 F.3d 175 (7th Cir.1994), Czuba, and Slali offer an acceptable solution where a discharge injunction may have been erroneously applied and invoked by a state court or others to stay prosecution of an action to collect from third parties.