United States Eighth Circuit

In a case arising out of the bankruptcy of an excavation company that participated in employee-benefit plans wherein the plans and their trustees claimed that debtor's bankruptcy trustee improperly made payments to a bank instead of the plans, various rulings are affirmed where: 1) unpaid contributions owed to the plans were not employee contributions because the contributions were not withheld from employees' paychecks; 2) thus, the unpaid contributions remained corporate assets and did not become assets of the plan; 3) trustee's failure to assert a claim against the bank was justified and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plans' motion to commence litigation against the bank; 4) there was no abuse of discretion in not granting an equitable subordination claim; and 5) plans' motion for removal of the bankruptcy trustee was properly denied without a hearing.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/09/2008
• Published 09/09/2008

Judges

• MELLOY, Circuit Judge., Before MELLOY, ARNOLD and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Eighth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Jeffrey Craig Miller, argued, Omaha, NE (Malcolm D. Young and Keith I. Kosaki, on the brief), for appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• T. Randall Wright, argued, Omaha, NE, for appellee M & S Grading., Robert L. Lepp, argued, Omaha, NE, for appellee First National Bank.