In Re: Laverne Leonard
- Lewis Liman
- 1:20-cv-06806
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In re Laverne Leonard: Judge Liman denied bankruptcy-appeal stay motions without prejudice and scheduled a conference about consolidation, docket issues, and briefing.
Laverne Leonard and the appellees in the four related bankruptcy appeals were affected. The stay motions in 20-cv-1518 and 20-cv-1558 were denied without prejudice, and the parties were ordered to attend a conference about consolidation, docket issues, and briefing.
What happened
In re Laverne Leonard involves four related appeals from a bankruptcy-court order in the same underlying action. The court scheduled a telephone conference to discuss whether the appeals should be combined, concerns about documents filed on the public docket, and any needed changes to the briefing schedule.
The court also considered unopposed requests to pause the bankruptcy-court order while the appeals proceeded. The requests contained only bare requests and did not explain why a stay was justified under the required four factors, including likelihood of success and irreparable harm.
Judge Liman denied the stay requests without prejudice to renewal and directed the Clerk of Court to close the two docket entries containing those requests. The order did not decide the underlying bankruptcy appeals or the pending consolidation motion.
The detailed version
- In Re: Laverne Leonard · No. 1:20-cv-06806
- Lewis Liman
- Oct. 14, 2020
Background
The four related cases are appeals from an order entered by the bankruptcy court in the same underlying action, identified as bankruptcy case 19-12337. In one of the appeals, 20-cv-1558, the appellees moved to consolidate that case with 20-cv-1518. Laverne Leonard opposed consolidation.
Leonard also raised issues about filing her brief and supporting exhibits on the public docket in 20-cv-1558. Because of those issues, the appellee in that case had not filed a responsive brief.
Conference and briefing
The court ordered a telephone conference for October 22, 2020, at 4:00 p.m. The court stated that it would address the motion to consolidate, consider whether all four related cases should be consolidated, address documents that had not been filed on the public docket, and set new briefing schedules if necessary.
Stay motions
Motions to stay the bankruptcy-court order pending appeal were also pending in 20-cv-1558 and 20-cv-1518. A stay pauses the effect of an order while an appeal proceeds. The court explained that an appellant seeking a stay must satisfy a four-factor test: a strong showing of likely success on the merits, likely irreparable injury without a stay, the amount of injury a stay would cause other interested parties, and the public interest. The burden of establishing entitlement to a stay rests with the appellant.
The court found that Leonard had made no showing explaining why a stay was justified under those factors. It therefore denied both stay motions without prejudice to renewal and directed the Clerk of Court to close the docket entries containing them: Dkt. No. 11 in 20-cv-1518 and Dkt. No. 17 in 20-cv-1558.
Disposition and scope
Judge Lewis J. Liman denied the stay motions without prejudice. The order scheduled further proceedings concerning consolidation, public-docket filing issues, and briefing, but it did not rule on the merits of the bankruptcy appeals or decide the consolidation motion.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.