Celotex Corp. v. Edwards, 514 U.S. 300, 25 (1995)

Page:   Index   Previous  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  Next

324

CELOTEX CORP. v. EDWARDS

Stevens, J., dissenting

tion.11 Any conclusion to the contrary would trivialize the constitutional imperatives that shaped the Bankruptcy Code's jurisdictional provisions.12

III

Petitioner and the majority rely primarily on "related to" jurisdiction. Indeed, the Court's holding appears to rest almost entirely on the view that a bankruptcy judge has jurisdiction to enjoin proceedings in Article III courts whenever those proceedings are "related to" a pending Title 11 case. See ante, at 307-311. Two footnotes in the Court's opinion, however, might be read as suggesting alternative bases of

11 I agree with the majority that the Bankruptcy Judge's order is a temporary injunction, and thus it is not a "final order or judgment." Ante, at 309, n. 7. The temporary nature of the injunction, however, is irrelevant. As I have stated repeatedly in the text, I believe that a statutory scheme that deprives a bankruptcy judge of jurisdiction to "determine" a case also deprives that judge of jurisdiction to issue binding injunctions— even temporary ones—that would prevent an Article III court with jurisdiction over the case from determining it.

12 The cases on which the Bankruptcy Judge relied are entirely consistent with my approach, and they provide at most indirect support for his order. In A. H. Robins Co. v. Piccinin, 788 F. 2d 994, 997 (CA4), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 876 (1986), the challenged injunction was issued by an Article III court ("[T]he district court granted Robins' request for a preliminary injunction"); and in In re Johns-Manville Corp., 837 F. 2d 89, 91-92 (CA2), cert. denied, 488 U. S. 868 (1988), the Court of Appeals found that the Bankruptcy Judge had jurisdiction to enter the injunction in a core proceeding because the insurance policies that were the subject of the injunction were property of the bankruptcy estate. Thus, those cases do not support the present injunction, which was issued by a non-Article III judge and which affects supersedeas bonds that are concededly not property of the debtor's estate.

I also note that in Willis v. Celotex Corp., 978 F. 2d 146 (1992), cert. denied, 507 U. S. 1030 (1993), though upholding the very injunction at issue in this case, the Fourth Circuit engaged in no detailed jurisdictional analysis and entirely omitted any discussion of the significance of the Bankruptcy Judge's non-Article III status.

Page:   Index   Previous  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  Next

Last modified: October 4, 2007