SUNDAE v. SCOT

1 Citing case

  1. Niedermeier v. St. Joseph Hospital

    188 Misc. 2d 107 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2001)

    Doemling's ultimate holding — that post-petition personal injury claims are the property of the debtor in a chapter 11 proceeding rather than the property of the bankruptcy estate — has been followed by most of the courts that have since addressed the issue. Cf, e.g., In re Durrett, 187 B.R. 413 [debtor filed chapter 11 petition in November, 1990, and was involved in airplane crash July, 1991; : potential proceeds of personal injury action arising from the crash are not includable in the bankruptcy estate]; Sundae v. Scot, 529 N.W.2d 362 [Minn. CA] [debtor filed chapter 11 petition in July, 1990; on five occasions in 1991 and 1992, debtor was subject of public statements about him by Minneapolis city agency concerning real property owned, transferred or abandoned by him; and in 1993, debtor, a native of India, filed action for libel and slander, abuse of process, and racial discrimination, arising out of such public statements; held: post-petition causes of action for libel, slander and abuse of process are rooted in pre-petition property ownership and, therefore, under Segal v. Rochelle, 382 U.S. 375, are assets of the bankruptcy estate; however, post-petition racial discrimination claim is inherently personal to debtor, in the same way a personal injury claim would be (citing In re Doemling, supra), and, hence, is property of the debtor, not the bankruptcy estate]; and cf. also, Patrick A. Casey, P.A. v. Hochman, 963 F.2d 1347 [CA 10] [debtor filed chapter 11 petition in January 1982, and invented a medical device i