My congratulations to Judge Nelson on this opinion.
It's extremely well-written. It flows gracefully. It explains things well. It's careful and refined.
Here are the first several paragraphs:
"Bankruptcy proceedings differ from traditional civil cases we more often hear. Bankruptcy proceedings can be a complex process of reorganizing various financial aspects of debtors’ lives. Because the proceedings can involve so many aspects, an appealable order can fit into two categories. First, district court orders can resolve the entire “umbrella bankruptcy case,” that is, the entire process by which debtors discharge their debt. Ritzen Grp., Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC, 589 U.S. 35, 38 (2020). We clearly have jurisdiction over this set of bankruptcy orders.
But an umbrella bankruptcy case “involves an aggregation of individual controversies, many of which would exist as stand-alone lawsuits but for the bankrupt status of the debtor.” Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank, 575 U.S. 496, 501 (2015) (cleaned up). Thus, Congress provides us with jurisdiction over a second category of appeals. These are appeals of orders which “finally dispose of discrete disputes within the larger case.” Id. (citation omitted). We are asked here to decide whether a discrete dispute is final and appealable.
In this case, a group of creditors appeals an order that rejected one basis for excepting their debt from discharge; a second basis is set for trial. Creditors argue that the appealed order is a final order of a discrete dispute within the larger bankruptcy case, and thus appealable. But the Supreme Court has warned against “slicing the case too thin.” Id. at 502. “An erroneous identification of an interlocutory order as a final decision may yield an appeal over which the appellate forum lacks jurisdiction.” Ritzen, 589 U.S. at 39. Any preliminary issue in a bankruptcy can theoretically be considered a discrete dispute even though it may only decide a portion of the case. See id. at 44. Creditors appeal this type of preliminary step.
Appellants cannot subdivide the dischargeability determination proceeding into a preliminary issue resolving an individual exception from discharge. Because the district court remanded the proceeding to the bankruptcy court for a trial on another exception, it is not a final order as to the discrete proceeding—a dischargeability determination. We thus dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction."
The remainder of the opinion is in the same vein. Nice, meticulous, and always explanatory.
Maybe it's because bankruptcy is an area with which I'm less than intimately familiar, but I very much appreciated both the tone and content of the opinion. And I expect that other readers would feel the same.
