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2007 NORTON BANKRUPTCY LAW SEMINAR MATERIALS

ADVANCED ISSUES IN AVOIDANCE

By Hon. William H. Brown, Dennis J. Connolly, David A. Lander, Timothy M. Lupinacci

 

 

subsection (c)(2)(C) where testimony of officer indicated that creditor dealt with the debtor in the same manner that it dealt with other debtors in the plastics industry. Court stated that it needed exact numbers as to the number of delinquent accounts which the creditor serviced, the amount of credit generally extended to debtors, and the frequency of workout arrangements with debtors who had past-due invoices. In re Superior Toy & Manufacturing Co., 183 B.R. 826, Chapter 11 trustee sought to avoid prepetition payments made by the debtor to the graphics company which supplied the debtor with designs for catalog. In support of its ordinary course of business defense, the creditor submitted the affidavit of person who published a study on accounts receivable collections for smaller advertising agencies, design studios, and public relations fare concluding that it takes, on an average, 51.7 days for entities in the industry to collect receivables. Pointing out that the debtor's several payments were made within the industry average, the creditor argued that it had met its burden under the ordinary course defense. The court rejected the creditor's argument stating that its was "pure happenstance" that the invoices paid averaged 51 days since most of the invoices were paid very quickly while others took much longer than 51 days to be paid. There was no analysis of individual payments.


In In re Midway Airlines, Inc., 180 B.R. 1009, a Chapter 7 Trustee sought to avoid prepetition payments made to a law firm which had represented the debtor in a union organizing action. The court upheld the defense where a member of the firm testified that the firm's dealings with other clients in the debtor's industry were similar to the firm's dealings with the debtor, and the debtor's dealings with the firm were similar to its dealings with other law firm. The witness also testified that he had knowledge of the firm's competitors' practices and that they were similar to those between the firm and the debtor. The reasoning in this case is in accord with the Seventh Circuit's later ruling in In re Midway Airlines, Inc., 69 F.3d 792, which is discussed above.


In In re NMI Systems, Inc., 179 B.R. 357, under the Tolona Pizza test, the court found that it was not required to find a single industry norm. Thus, testimony of defendant, a former employee of the debtor

 

 

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