Slater v. US Steel Corp., No. 12-15548 (11th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseTwenty-one months after plaintiff filed an employment discrimination case against US Steel, she filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition. When U.S. Steel learned of the bankruptcy case - that plaintiff's Chapter 7 petition had not disclosed the employment-discrimination claims she was pursuing and that the Chapter 7 Trustee was treating the bankruptcy as a “no asset” case and had filed a Report of No Distribution with the bankruptcy court - it moved the district court alternatively to dismiss the case or for summary judgment. The district court concluded that the doctrine of judicial estoppel as formulated in Burnes v. Pemco Aeroplex, Inc., and Robinson v. Tyson Foods, Inc., controlled its decision. The court concluded that New Hampshire v. Maine did not govern the district court's application of judicial estoppel in this case. Therefore, the court rejected plaintiff's argument that the district court erred in failing to give the New Hampshire factors appropriate weight and concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in barring her claims on the basis of judicial estoppel. Further, the court concluded that the district court did not err in applying Eleventh Circuit precedent, namely Burnes and Robinson, where the bankruptcy court in those cases accepted the debtor's failure to disclose as property of the bankruptcy estate claims the debtor was litigating in federal district court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on September 18, 2017.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on June 12, 2018.
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