United States Ninth Circuit

Summary judgment for defendant holding that judicial estoppel prohibited the plaintiff from proceeding with her employment discrimination action, which she had failed to list in her bankruptcy schedules, is vacated and remanded, where: 1) the district court applied the wrong legal standard in determining whether the plaintiff's bankruptcy omission was mistaken or inadvertent; and 2) when a plaintiff-debtor has reopened the bankruptcy proceedings and has corrected the initial filing error, narrow interpretations of mistake and inadvertence do not apply, and instead, judicial estoppel requires an inquiry into whether the plaintiff's bankruptcy filing was, in fact, inadvertent or mistaken, as those terms are commonly understood.

Appellate Information

• Decided 07/24/2013
• Published 07/24/2013

Judges

• GRABER

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel