Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 14, 2020 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- January 14, 2020
- Docket
- No. 18-938
- Argued
- November 13, 2019
- Term
- October Term 2019
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, Justice Ginsburg (wrote), Justice Breyer, Justice Alito, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh
Oral argument transcript and advocates
Opinion excerpt
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. Under the Bankruptcy Code, filing a petition for bankruptcy automatically "operates as a stay" of creditors' debt-collection efforts outside the umbrella of the bankruptcy case. 11 U.S.C. § 362(a). The question this case presents concerns the finality of, and therefore the time allowed for appeal from, a bankruptcy court's order denying a creditor's request for relief from the automatic stay. In civil litigation generally, a court's decision ordinarily becomes "final," for purposes of appeal, only upon completion of the entire case, i.e. , when the decision "terminate[s the] action" or "ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment." Gelboim v. Bank of America Corp. , 574 U.S. 405, 409, 135 S.Ct. 897, 190 L.Ed.2d 789 (2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). The regime in bankruptcy is different. A bankruptcy case embraces "an aggregation of individual controversies." 1 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶5.08[1][b], p. 5-43 (16th ed. 2019). Orders in bankruptcy cases qualify as "final" when they definitively dispose of discrete disputes within the overarching bankruptcy case. Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank , 575 U.S. 496, 501, 135 S.Ct. 1686, 191 L.Ed.2d 621 (2015). The precise issue the Court today decides: Does a creditor's motion for relief from the automatic stay initiate a distinct…
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