Truck Insurance Exchange v. Kaiser Gypsum Co.

Docket: 22-1079

Opinion Date: June 6, 2024

Judge: Sonia Sotomayor

Areas of Law: Bankruptcy, Business Law, Insurance Law

The case involves Truck Insurance Exchange (Truck), the primary insurer for companies that manufactured and sold products containing asbestos. Two of these companies, Kaiser Gypsum Co. and Hanson Permanente Cement (Debtors), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after facing thousands of asbestos-related lawsuits. As part of the bankruptcy process, the Debtors proposed a reorganization plan that created an Asbestos Personal Injury Trust (Trust) to handle all present and future asbestos-related claims. Truck, contractually obligated to defend each covered asbestos personal injury claim and to indemnify the Debtors for up to $500,000 per claim, opposed the Plan, arguing that it exposed them to millions of dollars in fraudulent claims due to different disclosure requirements for insured and uninsured claims.

The District Court confirmed the Plan, concluding that Truck had limited standing to object to the Plan because it was “insurance neutral,” meaning it did not increase Truck’s prepetition obligations or impair its contractual rights under its insurance policies. The Fourth Circuit affirmed this decision, agreeing that Truck was not a “party in interest” under §1109(b) of the Bankruptcy Code because the plan was “insurance neutral.”

The Supreme Court of the United States reversed the Fourth Circuit's decision, holding that an insurer with financial responsibility for bankruptcy claims is a “party in interest” under §1109(b) of the Bankruptcy Code and may raise and appear and be heard on any issue in a Chapter 11 case. The Court reasoned that §1109(b)’s text, context, and history confirm that an insurer such as Truck with financial responsibility for a bankruptcy claim is a “party in interest” because it may be directly and adversely affected by the reorganization plan. The Court also rejected the “insurance neutrality” doctrine, stating that it conflates the merits of an objection with the threshold party in interest inquiry. The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court's opinion.

Connelly v. United States

Docket: 23-146

Opinion Date: June 6, 2024

Judge: Clarence Thomas

Areas of Law: Business Law, Tax Law

The case revolves around the valuation of shares for estate tax purposes following the death of a shareholder. Michael and Thomas Connelly were the sole shareholders of Crown C Supply, a building supply corporation. They had an agreement that if either brother died, the surviving brother could purchase the deceased's shares. If he declined, the corporation would be required to redeem the shares. To ensure the corporation had enough money for this, it obtained $3.5 million in life insurance on each brother. When Michael died, Thomas chose not to purchase Michael's shares, triggering Crown's obligation to do so. The value of Michael's shares was agreed to be $3 million, which was paid to Michael's estate. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audited the return and disagreed with the valuation, insisting that the corporation's redemption obligation did not offset the life-insurance proceeds. The IRS assessed the corporation's total value as $6.86 million and calculated the value of Michael's shares as $5.3 million. Based on this higher valuation, the IRS determined that the estate owed an additional $889,914 in taxes.

The District Court granted summary judgment to the Government, holding that the $3 million in life-insurance proceeds must be counted in Crown’s valuation. The Eighth Circuit affirmed this decision.

The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the lower courts' decisions. The Court held that a corporation’s contractual obligation to redeem shares is not necessarily a liability that reduces a corporation’s value for purposes of the federal estate tax. The Court reasoned that a fair-market-value redemption has no effect on any shareholder’s economic interest, and thus, no hypothetical buyer purchasing Michael’s shares would have treated Crown’s obligation to redeem Michael’s shares at fair market value as a factor that reduced the value of those shares. The Court concluded that Crown’s promise to redeem Michael’s shares at fair market value did not reduce the value of those shares.

Becerra v. San Carlos Apache Tribe

Docket: 23-250

Opinion Date: June 6, 2024

Judge: John G. Roberts, Jr.

Areas of Law: Contracts, Native American Law

The case involves the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA), which allows an Indian tribe to enter into a "self-determination contract" with the Indian Health Service (IHS) to administer healthcare programs that IHS would otherwise operate for the tribe. The San Carlos Apache Tribe and the Northern Arapaho Tribe sued the Government for breach of contract, arguing that although they used the Secretarial amount and program income to operate the healthcare programs they assumed from IHS under their self-determination contracts, IHS failed to pay the contract support costs they incurred by providing healthcare services using program income. The Ninth and Tenth Circuits concluded that each Tribe was entitled to reimbursement for such costs.

The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the decisions of the Ninth and Tenth Circuits. The Court held that ISDA requires IHS to pay the contract support costs that a tribe incurs when it collects and spends program income to further the functions, services, activities, and programs transferred to it from IHS in a self-determination contract. The Court reasoned that the Tribe's self-determination contract incorporated ISDA, which required the Tribe to spend third-party program income on healthcare. Those portions of the Tribe’s healthcare programs funded by third-party income thus constituted “activities which must be carried on by [the Tribe] as a contractor to ensure compliance with the terms of the contract,” and the contract support costs associated with those activities were incurred “in connection with the operation of the Federal program.” The Court concluded that the text of ISDA, therefore, indicated that IHS was required to reimburse the Tribe for those costs.