You might have thought Taggart was resolved by the Supreme Court, eh? No “it goes on Judah,” from my favorite movie Ben Hur.
The Supreme Court reversed the prior ruling of the 9th Circuit in Taggart and sent it back to the 9th Circuit. The 9th Circuit required new briefs, basically starting the appeal over. They are back to reviewing the ruling by the BAP that the creditor here did not violate the discharge injunction when it asked for postpetition attorneys fees in state court litigation that had begun prepetition. The BAP had ruled that the creditor had a reasonable belief that he was not violating the discharge injunction. The 9th Circuit had affirmed saying it’s purely subjective, even if the subjective belief is unreasonable. The Supreme Court reversed saying it is not purely subjective – the test is whether there is a fair ground of doubt.
Dan Geyser argues for the debtor. You may recall he came to Los Angeles from his home in Texas last summer to do a program with Prof Dan Bussell and me for the Central District Consumer Bankruptcy Attorney’s Assn (cdcbaa). He had just finished arguing four cases that term at the Supreme Court. You can watch the oral argument here. https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media/view_video.php?pk_vid=0000017600