United States Fifth Circuit

In a suit accusing defendant of filing a claim attempting to collect a pre-petition debt in violation of an automatic stay in plaintiffs' Chapter 13 bankruptcy, an interlocutory order granting partial summary judgment for plaintiffs is reversed where: 1) unpaid escrow payments that accumulate pre-petition in the year that a bankruptcy petition is filed, and which the creditor had a right to collect under the loan documents, constitute a "claim" under the Bankruptcy Code; but 2) the filing of a proof of claim including the amounts of these payments does not by itself violate an automatic stay in a bankruptcy proceeding.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/27/2008
• Published 08/27/2008

Judges

• SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judge:, Before HIGGINBOTHAM, STEWART and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Fifth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Stephen C. Stapleton, Dykema Gossett, PLLC, Dallas, TX, for EMC Mortgage Corp., Amicus Curiae.


• For Appellees:
  
• Johnie Joe Patterson, II (argued), Walker & Patterson, Richard W. Aurich, Jr., Houston, TX, for Plaintiffs-Appellees., Douglas D. Skierski, William Scott Hastings (argued), Linda Marie Bezdicek, Melissa Sue Hayward, Locke, Lord, Bissell & Liddell, LLP, Dallas, TX, for Defendant-Appellant.