In Re: Ahmed Husain Zubair

Background

Ahmed Husain Zubair, proceeding without a lawyer and without prepaying court fees, appealed two orders from his bankruptcy case: a December 4, 2020, order granting relief from the automatic stay, and an April 26, 2021, order dismissing the bankruptcy case. The automatic stay is the temporary protection that generally stops certain collection and enforcement actions during a bankruptcy case.

Zubair filed an emergency motion in both appeals seeking a stay pending appeal and a temporary stay while the court considered a motion concerning the dismissal order. He asked for immediate relief related to the repossession of his car by AmeriCredit Financial Service doing business as GM Financial Services and the possible liquidation, sale, or possession of property at 90 Bruce Avenue in Yonkers, New York.

Zubair argued that the bankruptcy judge’s dismissal order lacked a legal or factual basis and resulted from alleged misrepresentations by Chapter 13 Trustee Krista M. Preuss. He also alleged that the bankruptcy judge and the trustee had historically acted together against him and that the trustee was biased. The opinion describes these assertions as unsupported. The motion’s caption also listed Bank of America, N.A., SN Servicing Corp., and US Bank Trust National Association as defendants, but the court stated that those entities were not parties to either appeal. SN Servicing responded as an interested party and stated that it was then servicing the mortgage loan on the Yonkers property.

Legal standard

For a stay pending appeal, the court considered four factors: whether the applicant was likely to succeed on the merits, whether the applicant would suffer harm that could not be repaired without a stay, whether a stay would substantially harm other interested parties, and where the public interest lay. The court identified likelihood of success and irreparable harm as the two most important factors.

Court’s analysis

The court held that Zubair had not shown that he was likely to succeed in either appeal. It found that his motion consisted of unsupported allegations of corruption, conspiracy, and bias and did not provide a factual basis showing likely success. The court also relied on the reasons stated in Fay Servicing, LLC’s brief.

The court further held that Zubair had not shown irreparable harm. It reasoned that even if a possible foreclosure sale of the Yonkers property caused an appeal to become moot, the risk of that result did not amount to irreparable harm because the appeals were unlikely to succeed. Because Zubair had not shown either likely success or irreparable harm, the court concluded that the balance of the factors weighed against a stay.

Disposition

The court denied Zubair’s “Emergency Motion for [a] Stay Pending Appeal and for [a] Temporary Stay Pending Consideration of Motion Against Order Dismissing Bankruptcy” in both appeals. The court did not decide the underlying merits of the appeals in this order.

The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied payment-free status for the purpose of appealing this order. It directed the clerk to terminate the pending motion on both appeal dockets and directed chambers to mail Zubair a copy of the order.