McDow, Jr. v Dudley, et al., No. 10-1732 (4th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseThis case stemmed from debtors' voluntary petition for bankruptcy relief under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. When the Chapter 13 trustee moved to dismiss the case or to convert it to a Chapter 7 case, debtors filed a motion to convert their case to a Chapter 7 case, which the bankruptcy court granted. Thereafter, the U.S. Trustee filed a motion to dismiss the Chapter 7 case. At issue was whether an order denying the U.S. Trustee's motion to dismiss a debtor's Chapter 7 bankruptcy case as abusive under 11 U.S.C. 707(b) was a final order appealable under 28 U.S.C. 158(a). The district court dismissed the trustee's appeal, ruling that the bankruptcy court's order was interlocutory and therefore not appealable to the district court. The court held that because of the particular effect that an order denying a motion to dismiss a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case as abusive had on the bankruptcy proceedings, a bankruptcy court's order denying such a motion was appealable to the district court. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's order dismissing the trustee's appeal and remanded for further proceedings.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.