THOMAS M. GERMAIN, Trustee for the Estate of O'Sullivan's Fuel Oil Co., Inc., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. THE CONNECTICUT NATIONAL BANK, Defendant-Appellant., 988 F.2d 1323

Summary

Appellant bank sought review of a judgment by the district court affirming the bankruptcy court's decision to grant appellee bankruptcy trustee's request for a jury trial. Appellant was a creditor of the Chapter 7 debtor and argued that appellee did not have a constitutional right to try before a jury its claims against appellant for tortious interference with debtor's business, coercion and duress, breach of good faith, unfair or deceptive business practices, and misrepresentation, since the claims arose post-petition and implicated provisions of the bankruptcy code. The appellate court held that: 1) appellee's claims were not bankruptcy claims and only incidentally implicated provisions of bankruptcy code, 2) U.S. Const. amend. VII applied in appellee's case, 3) appellee's action was not integrally related to any substantive bankruptcy provisions, 4) the public regulatory scheme would not be hampered by a jury trial, and 5) appellee's action involved private rights and were to be ...