Court Opinion

ID: 9752644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:26:06.313773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:44:48.670287
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
with whom NEWMAN, Senior Judge, joins, concurring:
I agree that the judgment must be reversed and, although my emphasis is some*774what different, I have no quarrel with Judge Ruiz’ opinion. I write separately, however, to discuss the tension between the result we reach and traditional equitable principles.
The gravamen of Ms. Powell’s complaint is that the landlord evicted her in violation of the bankruptcy court’s automatic stay. It is undisputed that, but for the entry of that stay, the landlord would have been entitled, pursuant to the judgment for possession and writ of restitution issued by the Landlord & Tenant Branch, to evict Ms. Powell and to place her belongings on the street. See Robert S. SCHOSHINSKI, AMERICAN LAW OF LANDLORD & Tenant, § 6.18 (1980 & Supp.1995). The viability of her claims for wrongful eviction and for conversion thus depends largely, if not exclusively, upon a showing that the landlord violated the automatic stay. The labeling of Counts I and III as claims under local tort law cannot create Superior Court jurisdiction, if these claims depend entirely on the validity of Count II.
In its answer to Ms. PoweU’s complaint, the landlord asserted that the automatic stay did not apply to the landlord’s action for possession because that proceeding “did not involve [Ms. Powell’s] estate.” As a result, the Superior Court is being asked to resolve a somewhat esoteric issue of bankruptcy law which appears to be within the bankruptcy court’s expertise,1 and to determine generally whether the landlord has violated the bankruptcy court’s order.
This is most unusual. As the Supreme Court stated more than a century ago, “[t]o submit the question of disobedience [of a court order] to another tribunal, be it a jury or another court, would operate to deprive the proceeding of half its efficiency.” In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564, 595,15 S.Ct. 900, 910, 39 L.Ed. 1092 (1895). Accordingly, “[t]he power to punish a violation of an injunction vests in the court which granted the injunction and, in the absence of a statute, in that court alone.” 43A C.J.S. Injunctions § 301, at 658 & n. 27 (1978 & Supp.1996); see also City of Wilmington v. Lord, 340 A.2d 182, 185 (Del.Super.1975) (Superior Court is without authority to enforce an order of the Chancery Court).
The doctrine that a court order is to be enforced by the court which issued it, and only by that court, has been applied in cases very similar to this one. In Hawthorne v. Hameed, 836 P.2d 683 (Okl.App.1989), a debtor who had filed for bankruptcy protection sued his creditor in a local district court for wrongful garnishment, alleging that the garnishment was in violation of the bankruptcy court’s automatic stay. The trial court entered judgment on a jury verdict in favor of the debtor, but the appellate court reversed, holding that the bankruptcy court had the sole responsibility to determine the effects of its own stay, and that in Oklahoma “the power of a state court to punish for contempt lies exclusively in the court whose order is violated.” Id. at 685 (citations omitted). The court went on to explain that “claims for relief from the creditor’s acts prohibited solely by the automatic stay should be brought only in bankruptcy court.” Id. at 686 (quoting Stoops, Monetary Awards to the Debtor for Violations of the Automatic Stay, 11 Fla. St. U.L.Rev. 423, 425-26 (Summer 1983)). The decision in Hawthorne was followed in Ramdharry v. Gurer, 1995 WL 41353, No. CV-89-42620 (Conn.Super.Jan. 25, 1995).
The courts in Hawthorne and Ramdharry, however, did not address or even mention the relevant provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1334(a) and (b), quoted at page 770 of Judge Ruiz’ opinion. Section 1334(a) provides that the district court shall have exclusive jurisdiction solely in “cases under title 11.” This is a very narrow category indeed. In In re Brady, Texas, Mun. Gas Corp., 936 F.2d 212, 218 (5th Cir.1991), the court explained the jurisdictional provisions:
Although the district courts “have original and exclusive jurisdiction of all cases under title 11,” the district courts do not have “exclusive jurisdiction of all civil proceedings arising under title 11 or arising in or related to cases under title 11.” See ... (28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1334(a), (b) (West Supp. *7751991)) (emphasis added). Thus, under section [1334] the only aspect of the bankruptcy proceeding over which the district courts and their bankruptcy units have exclusive jurisdiction is “the bankruptcy petition itself.” See In re Wood, 825 F.2d 90, 92 (5th Cir.1987). In other matters arising in or relating to title 11 cases, unless the Code provides otherwise, state courts have concurrent jurisdiction....
In the present case, the trial judge did not hold, nor could she, that the present case was one brought “under title 11.” On the contrary, she stated in her written order dismissing the complaint that Ms. Powell’s claim “is a case arising under the [Bankruptcy] [C]ode,” but she then opined that “original and exclusive jurisdiction of cases arising under the Bankruptcy Code is vested in the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court_” (Emphasis added.) The judge’s characterization of the case as one “arising under” the Bankruptcy Code was correct; counsel for the landlord does not contend otherwise.2 Section 1334(b) provides, however, that “the district courts shall have original but not exclusive jurisdiction of all civil proceedings arising under title 11, or arising in or related to cases under title 11.” (Emphasis added.)
The judge’s undisputed and unassailable determination that this ease “arises under” the Bankruptcy Code thus compels the conclusion that, according to the terms of Section 1334(b), the bankruptcy court had original but not exclusive jurisdiction, and that the complaint therefore could properly be filed in the Superior Court. Accordingly, the landlord’s motion to dismiss the complaint should not have been granted.3

. But cf. Brock v. Marysville Body Works, 829 F.2d 383, 387 (3d Cir.1987) (holding that a federal appellate court has jurisdiction to determine whether a pending proceeding is subject to the automatic stay).

. A case “arising under” the Bankruptcy Code is one predicated on a right created by that Code which would not exist but for a provision of that Code. In re Van Huffel Tube Corp., 71 B.R. 155 (Bankr.N.D.Ohio 1987). Count II of the complaint — violation of the automatic stay — falls well within that definition. If the Superior Court had jurisdiction over Count II, then a fortiori, it had jurisdiction over Counts I and III (wrongful eviction and conversion), which were at least ostensibly grounded on local tort law rather than on the Bankruptcy Code.

. The parties have not raised, and I do not address, the question whether the Superior Court may abstain or decline to exercise jurisdiction where, as here, it is being asked to interpret and enforce another court’s order. ■