United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 06-9003
IN RE: YURY SHKOLNIKOV,
Debtor.
__________
MIKHAIL ELKIN ET AL.,
Appellees,
v.
METROPOLITAN PROPERTY & CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY,
Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE BANKRUPTCY APPELLATE PANEL
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
Campbell, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lynch, Circuit Judge.
Stephen F. Gordon, with whom Peter J. Haley, Leslie F. Su, and
Gordon Haley LLP were on brief, for appellant.
Edward Foye, with whom Todd & Weld LLP and Marc Alpert were on
brief, for appellees.
November 20, 2006
SELYA, Circuit Judge. As a general rule, parties may
appeal from a final decision, order, or judgment rendered by a
court, but not simply from statements or findings contained in the
body of such a decision, order, or judgment. This appeal
contradicts that general rule. Consequently, we dismiss it for
want of appellate jurisdiction.
Much of the relevant background is laid out in an opinion
resolving an earlier, related appeal. See Metro. Prop. & Cas. Ins.
Co. v. Shan Trac, Inc., 324 F.3d 20 (1st Cir. 2003). We draw
heavily upon that opinion in recounting the travel of this case.
On March 8, 2000, the debtor, Yury Shkolnikov, drove a
rented van into a median barrier in Clark County, Nevada. Eight of
the van's passengers were killed and five were injured, apparently
because Shkolnikov fell asleep at the wheel. The applicable
automobile liability insurance policy, issued in Massachusetts by
Metropolitan Property & Casualty Insurance Co. (Metropolitan),
provided a per-accident limit of $300,000 in coverage.
Faced with potential damages far in excess of that sum,
Metropolitan commenced a statutory interpleader action, 28 U.S.C.
§ 1335, in the United States District Court for the District of
Massachusetts. Attempts to settle the interpleader action never
quite came to fruition: the action culminated in a process by which
the victims could collect the insurance proceeds without litigating
their tort claims, but some claimants found the scope of the
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required waiver to be unacceptable, and the process aborted. See
Shan Trac, 324 F.3d at 24-25. Pertinently, however, while this
action was wending its way through the federal courts, a number of
tort claimants sued Shkolnikov for negligence and/or wrongful death
in a California state court. On the eve of trial in the state
case, Shkolnikov declared bankruptcy. That filing shifted the
battlefield to the bankruptcy court in Massachusetts.
On November 17, 2003, the claimants, qua creditors,
brought a motion in the bankruptcy court for relief from the
automatic stay and for an assignment of rights. The motion
described in detail the asset that the creditors sought to have
assigned — Shkolnikov's rights against his liability insurance
carrier (Metropolitan). Without opposition, the bankruptcy court
granted the motion on December 3, 2003.
Simultaneous with the filing of the motion, the
creditors, for whatever reason, brought an adversary proceeding
against Shkolnikov to compel an assignment of the same rights. The
bankruptcy court, acting sua sponte, dismissed the adversary
proceeding on February 13, 2004. The creditors appealed.
During the pendency of the appeal, the creditors agreed
to purchase whatever rights Shkolnikov might have against
Metropolitan from the trustee in bankruptcy rather than attempting
to obtain them through continued prosecution of the adversary
proceeding. However, when the trustee gave notice of his intention
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to sell the asset, Metropolitan objected. The trustee appeared at
the hearing before the bankruptcy court and said, in essence, that
he thought there was no merit to the creditors' putative claims
against Metropolitan but that, as a fiduciary, he saw no reason to
pass up an opportunity to sell the asset (and, thus, enrich the
bankruptcy estate). The bankruptcy court nonetheless denied the
motion to sell, stating that it would be "an abuse of . . .
power[]" to grant the motion in light of the trustee's
representations.
The creditors moved for reconsideration and, when the
court denied that motion, they appealed. On February 2, 2006, the
Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (the BAP) dismissed the appeal. See In
re Shkolnikov, 337 B.R. 1 (1st Cir. BAP 2006). The BAP did not
dwell on the denial of the motion to sell but, rather, focused on
the December 3, 2003 order granting the creditors' earlier motion.
The BAP interpreted that order as assigning to the creditors "all
rights the Debtor and/or Debtor's estate may have pursuant to
Chapters 93A and 176D of Massachusetts and/or bad faith law, and/or
common or statutory law of any applicable jurisdiction against
[Metropolitan] and any other individual or entity" with respect to
the accident. Id. at 3 (quoting 2003 order) (alteration in BAP
opinion). The BAP then stated:
When the bankruptcy court granted the
appellants' motion seeking relief from stay
and assignment of Shkolnikov's rights against
Metropolitan (and others), its order conveyed
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to them the very rights that were the subject
of the trustee's sale motion. That order is
final and binding on all parties, including
Metropolitan. The court's refusal to
authorize conveyance of the same rights to
them a second time aggrieved the appellants
not at all. Accordingly, they lack standing.
. . . There is no right to redundant relief.
Id. at 4-5 (citations and footnote omitted). Accordingly, the BAP
dismissed the creditors' appeal for lack of standing.
Since Metropolitan appeared before the BAP as an
appellee, this ruling represented a victory for it. Though
triumphant, Metropolitan has now appealed. It does not contest the
result of the underlying proceeding — after all, as we have pointed
out, the BAP's dismissal of the creditors' appeal was favorable to
Metropolitan — but, rather, contests the BAP's statement that the
earlier order conveyed Shkolnikov's rights to the creditors. That
is not a permissible basis for an appeal.
It is an abecedarian rule that a party cannot prosecute
an appeal from a judgment in its favor. See Lindheimer v. Ill.
Bell Tel. Co., 292 U.S. 151, 176 (1934); W. W. Windle Co. v.
Comm'r, 550 F.2d 43, 45 (1st Cir. 1977). There is a corollary to
this rule: since courts of appeals sit to review final decisions,
orders, and judgments of lower courts, such as the BAP, not to
review passages in lower court opinions, a party may not appeal a
favorable decision, order, or judgment for the purpose of securing
appellate review of statements or findings therein. See California
v. Rooney, 483 U.S. 307, 311 (1987). That proposition remains true
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even though the appealing party considers the offending statements
or findings to be erroneous.1 See id.
That proposition captures the essence of this case:
Metropolitan, though successful in defending against the creditors'
appeal to the BAP, takes umbrage with the BAP's statements about
the 2003 order. That sort of dissatisfaction, without more, cannot
confer a right to appeal upon a successful litigant. See, e.g.,
Abbs v. Sullivan, 963 F.2d 918, 924 (7th Cir. 1992) (explaining
that "a winner cannot appeal a judgment merely because there are
passages in the court's opinion that displease him").
We need go no further. Because Metropolitan had no right
to appeal from the BAP's decision in its favor, we dismiss this
proceeding without prejudice for want of appellate jurisdiction.
We take no view as to the correctness vel non of the BAP's
interpretation of the 2003 order which, as we understand it,
remains open to testing in other proceedings.2
Appeal dismissed. All parties shall bear their own
costs.
1
There may be a narrow exception to this proposition in cases
in which an essential element of the decision will have detrimental
preclusive legal effect on the would-be appellant in future
proceedings. See Elect'l Fittings Corp. v. Thomas & Betts Co., 307
U.S. 241, 242 (1939); W. W. Windle, 550 F.2d at 46. That exception
is not implicated here.
2
We are advised that Metropolitan has pending, before the
district court, an appeal from the denial of a motion for relief
from the 2003 order.
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