Abstract: The Supreme Court’s ruling in Stern v. Marshall has signaled a need to alter the bankruptcy court’s jurisdictional structure. In Stern, the Supreme Court ruled that bankruptcy judges, who lack the life tenure and salary protection of Article III, cannot issue final rulings in bankruptcy proceedings previously believed to be within their core jurisdiction.

Summary: Rodgers had filed a complaint for claims arising from a real estate dispute. The Bankruptcy Court granted a judgment on the pleadings as to two defendants, but, in light of Sterns v. Marshall, the District Court returned the matter to the Bankruptcy Court for a determination of whether the issues raised were “core” or “non-core” and the basis for jurisdiction. (See: http://ncbankruptcyexpert.com/?p=1137) The Bankruptcy Court then found that the claims were “non-core” pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

Summary: Having previously found that several claims brought by the Debtor against Bank of America were, pursuant to Stern v. Marshall, 131 S. Ct. 2594 (2011), core and subject to bankruptcy court jurisdiction, while others were “statutorily core, but did not qualify as constitutionally core”, the bankruptcy court retained the core issues and referred the non-core claims to arbitration.

Summary: In December 2005, the Eichorns were seeking to purchase a home and entered hired Preferred Carolinas Realty (“PCR”) and James Allen to represent them in the process. The Eichorns wer shown property located in Wake Forest, North Carolina (''the property") and were told by PCR that it was owned by Toth Building Company, when it was, in fact, owned by Rodgers. Following negotiations through PCR, the Eichorns signed as sales contract with Toth, although Rodgers, the true owner of the property, had no knowledge of it.

Summary: Chapter 13 Debtor brought an Adversary Proceeding against Cashcall, seeking a declaratory judgment that the debt owed to Cashcall (resulting from a $1,500.00 payday loan) was in violation of the North Carolina Consumer Finance Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 53-164 to -191 (2012) and alleging that Cashcall engaged in acts that qualify as Prohibited Acts by Debt Collectors under N.C. Gen. Stat.

Summary: Under the test formulated by the Supreme Court in Stern v. Marshall the court may enter final judgment in a core proceeding where "the action at issue stems from the bankruptcy itself or would necessarily be resolved in the claims allowance process." Stern, 131 S. Ct. at 2618. Where a defendant has filed a proof of claim, a fraudulent transfer action brought under either section 548 or section 544 becomes a part of the process of allowance and disallowance of claims. See Langenkamp v. Culp, 498 U.S.

Summary: Judge Ahart revisits his 2005 article, The Limited Scope of Implied Powers of a Bankruptcy Judge: A Statutory Court of Bankruptcy, Not a Court of Equity, 79 Am. Bankr. L.J. 1, in light of the Stern v. Marshall, 131 S. Ct.

Abstract: This Article considers the Supreme Court’s decision in Stern v. Marshall, which limited the power of a bankruptcy judge to decide a common law claim. Stern is best understood as a combination of three arguments drawn from the Court’s prior Article III cases. The first is an argument from history — the past division of labor between the Article III judiciary and non-Article III adjudicators. The second is an argument from expertise — the appropriate selection of disputes that benefit from a specialized non-Article III forum.

Abstract: Congress regularly makes judgment calls of constitutional dimension. One important example of the interaction between the constitutional analysis of the Court and that of Congress involves disputes over the broad grant of jurisdiction exercised by untenured bankruptcy judges. The legislative history preceding the Supreme Court’s decisions in Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. and Stern v. Marshall suggest that Congress’s constitutional interpretation is different in kind from that of the Supreme Court.

Abstract: This paper discusses the possible meaning and effect of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Stern v. Marshall, in which the Court held that the bankruptcy courts' statutory authority to enter final judgments on certain counterclaims against creditors violates Article III of the Constitution. It was prepared by the authors as a report to the fall 2011 annual meeting of the National Bankruptcy Conference. The Stern decision is enigmatic.