National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys files Amicus Brief, arguing against the 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals Judicial Estoppel Doctrine
NCBRC has filed an amicus brief in the Eleventh Circuit on behalf of the NACBA membership to address the issue of that circuit’s approach to judicial estoppel. Slater v. U.S. Steel, No. 12-15568 (filed October 24, 2016).
Twenty one months after filing an employment discrimination suit in federal district court against her former employer, U.S. Steel, Sandra Slater filed for bankruptcy. (The original case was filed under chapter 7 and later converted to chapter 13). She failed to list the pending federal case in her bankruptcy schedules. U.S. Steel then moved the district court to bar the discrimination suit based on the doctrine of judicial estoppel. The district court granted the motion and Ms. Slater appealed.
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed with a concurring opinion by Judge Tjoflat in which he agreed that the holding was compelled by the Eleventh Circuit decisions in Burnes v. Pemco Aeroplex, Inc., 291 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2002), and Barger v. City of Cartersville, 348 F.3d 1289 (11th Cir. 2003), but argued that those cases were wrongly decided. He maintained that application of Eleventh Circuit judicial estoppel precedent led to the resulted that: “U.S. Steel is granted a windfall, Slater’s creditors are deprived of an asset, and the Bankruptcy Court is stripped of its discretion.” Slater v. U.S. Steel Corp., 820 F.3d 1193, 1235 (11th Cir. 2016).
The court then vacated that decision and granted Ms. Slater’s motion for reconsideration en banc.
In its brief, NACBA argues that, as interpreted by Burnes and Barger and their progeny, the doctrine of judicial estoppel has strayed from its original purpose of protecting the integrity of the judicial process and become an inappropriate remedy for debtor error or misconduct.