Court Opinion

ID: 9493393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:06:41.514069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:48.836093
License: Public Domain

HILL, Circuit Judge,
concurring dubitante:
I concur with the majority. I confess some doubt, however, as to the enthusiasm with which they reach their result. The term “property of the estate” is comprised of “all legal or equitable interests of the debtor in property as of the commencement of the case.” 11 U.S.C. § 541 (emphasis added). Therefore it seems to me that whether a claim is “property of the estate” depends upon whether the claim accrued before or after the filing of the petition. In Florida, the accrual of a negligence action is measured from the time the injuries are sustained and not from the time the full extent of the damages have been ascertained. Trizec Properties, Inc. v. Biltmore Constr. Co., Inc., 767 F.2d 810, 812 n. 4 (11th Cir.1985) (emphasis added).
Here I believe the claim accrued at the moment the petition was filed. What we then have is a single act which produces two conflicting results. When the petition is filed, the estate is instantly created but the alleged tort is also completed. If the filing injures the plaintiff, how can the claim be a part of the estate as of the commencement of the case? Or, if the filing injures the plaintiff, how can the claim not be a part of the estate, and the plaintiff be said to have been injured after the commencement of the case, when the last act producing the injury coincides with the estate creation?1
With these doubts expressed, and a belief, as the majority opines, that the term “property of the estate” should be generously construed, I concur, because I believe the general purposes of the bankrupt*1281cy code are better served by the panel majority’s unraveling of this conundrum,

. Decision-makers have been accused of flipping coins — "Heads, it is property of the estate, tails, it is not.” That doesn’t decide the issue when the coin stands on its edge.