Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 14, 2020 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- January 14, 2020
- Term
- October Term 2019
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. Under the Bankruptcy Code, filing a petition for bankruptcy automatically "operates as a stay" of creditors' debt-collection efforts outside the umbrella of the bankruptcy case. 11 U.S.C. § 362(a). The question this case presents concerns the finality of, and therefore the time allowed for appeal from, a bankruptcy court's order denying a creditor's request for relief from the automatic stay. In civil litigation generally, a court's decision ordinarily becomes "final," for purposes of appeal, only upon completion of the entire case, i.e. , when the decision "terminate[s the] action" or "ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment." Gelboim v. Bank of America Corp. , 574 U.S. 405, 409, 135 S.Ct. 897, 190 L.Ed.2d 789 (2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). The regime in bankruptcy is different. A bankruptcy case embraces "an aggregation of individual controversies." 1 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶5.08[1][b], p. 5-43 (16th ed. 2019). Orders in bankruptcy cases qualify as "final" when they definitively dispose of discrete disputes within the overarching bankruptcy case. Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank , 575 U.S. 496, 501, 135 S.Ct. 1686, 191 L.Ed.2d 621 (2015). The precise issue the Court today decides: Does a creditor's motion for relief from the automatic stay initiate a distinct…
Excerpt of a 22,446-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.