deBenedictis v. Brady-Zell (In Re Brady-Zell) , 756 F.3d 69 ( 2014 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 13-9014
IN RE KAREN A. BRADY-ZELL,
Debtor.
____________________
DANIELLE E. deBENEDICTIS,
Creditor, Appellant,
v.
KAREN A. BRADY-ZELL,
Debtor, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE BANKRUPTCY APPELLATE PANEL
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
Before
Howard, Selya and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Danielle E. deBenedictis and deBenedictis, Miller & Blum, P.A.
on brief for appellant.
Logan A. Weinkauf and Benner & Weinkauf, P.C. on brief for
appellee.
June 25, 2014
SELYA, Circuit Judge. Faced with the grim prospect of a
crumbling marriage, Karen A. Brady-Zell (the debtor) engaged
Danielle E. deBenedictis (the attorney) to act as her counsel. The
debtor paid the attorney an up-front retainer of $25,000. After
the representation ended, the attorney billed the debtor for
additional fees and expenses of roughly $62,000. The debtor
balked, and the attorney filed a state-court collection action.
The debtor then petitioned for bankruptcy protection,
effectively staying the pending state-court action. See 11 U.S.C.
§ 362(a). She listed the balance due to the attorney among her
scheduled debts. Left holding what appeared to be an empty bag (or
nearly so), the attorney instituted an adversary proceeding in the
bankruptcy court under, inter alia, 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(A).1 She
asserted that the debt had been incurred through false and
fraudulent representations and under false pretenses and was,
therefore, nondischargeable.
Following a bench trial, the bankruptcy court wrote a
thoughtful rescript in which it concluded that the attorney had not
carried her burden of proving either false pretenses or a false
representation and proceeded to dismiss the adversary proceeding.
See deBenedictis v. Brady-Zell (In re Brady-Zell), No. 10-1119,
1
With exceptions not relevant here, 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(A)
provides that a discharge in bankruptcy "does not discharge an
individual debtor from any debt . . . to the extent obtained by
. . . false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud."
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2013 WL 1342479, at *8-9 (Bankr. D. Mass. Apr. 2, 2013). On an
intermediate appeal, the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) upheld
the bankruptcy court's ukase. It, too, offered a closely reasoned
explanation of its ruling. See deBenedictis v. Brady-Zell (In re
Brady-Zell), 500 B.R. 295, 301-05 (B.A.P. 1st Cir. 2013).
Unwilling to take "no" for an answer, the attorney
appealed the BAP's decision. After careful consideration, we
affirm.
We need not tarry. Having scrutinized the papers in the
case and surveyed the applicable law, we discern no principled
basis for disturbing the findings and conclusions of the lower
courts. With this in mind, we can be brief; after all, we have
explained before that when lower courts have supportably found the
facts, applied the appropriate legal standards, articulated their
reasoning clearly, and reached a correct result, a reviewing court
ought not to write at length merely to hear its own words resonate.
See, e.g., Vargas-Ruiz v. Golden Arch Dev., Inc., 368 F.3d 1, 2
(1st Cir. 2004); Lawton v. State Mut. Life Assur. Co., 101 F.3d
218, 220 (1st Cir. 1996); Ayala v. Union de Tronquistas, Local 901,
74 F.3d 344, 345 (1st Cir. 1996); Holders Capital Corp. v. Cal.
Union Ins. Co. (In re San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litig.), 989
F.2d 36, 38 (1st Cir. 1993). Accordingly, we affirm the judgment
for substantially the reasons previously elucidated by the
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bankruptcy court and the BAP, pausing only to add a few
embellishments.
First: The attorney's principal claim is that, at the
start of the lawyer-client relationship, the debtor falsely
promised to pay her fees. In other words, she alleges that the
debtor made a commitment to pay whatever fees thereafter might
accrue without the slightest intention of honoring that commitment.
To prove that the debt is nondischargeable under 11
U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(A), the attorney qua creditor had to complete a
six-step march. This march required her to show that the debtor
(i) made a knowingly false representation, (ii) intending to
deceive the creditor, and (iii) to induce the creditor to rely upon
the false promise; with the result that (iv) the creditor relied
upon the false promise, and (v) justifiably so, so that (vi) damage
resulted. See McCrory v. Spigel (In re Spigel), 260 F.3d 27, 32
(1st Cir. 2001); Palmacci v. Umpierrez, 121 F.3d 781, 786 (1st Cir.
1997).
The burden of proving the elements underlying each of
these six steps by a preponderance of the evidence rests with the
party seeking nondischargeability. See McCrory, 260 F.3d at 32.
A creditor arguing for an exception to nondischargeability must
prove all six elements; if her proof falls short on any element,
her quest for nondischargeability fails. See id.-4-
Here, the bankruptcy court went no further than the first
two elements. It found that the attorney had not proven by
preponderant evidence that the promise to pay was either knowingly
false when made or intended to deceive. See deBenedictis, 2013 WL
1342479, at *8. The court premised this determination squarely on
the burden of proof: it painstakingly reviewed the record and
concluded that the weight of the evidence was "split about even."
Id.Given this fully supportable assessment, we can find no
fault with the court's determination that the attorney failed to
carry her burden of proof. When the weight of the evidence is in
equipoise, a party cannot plausibly be said to have carried the
devoir of persuasion. See Toye v. O'Donnell (In re O'Donnell), 728
F.3d 41, 45 (1st Cir. 2013).
Second: The attorney labors to cast the relevant events
in a light more flattering to her theory of the case. Stripped of
rhetorical flourishes, this amounts to an invitation for us to
reweigh the evidence and balance the decisional scales differently.
We decline this invitation.
At this stage of bankruptcy litigation, the task of an
appellate court is not to find the facts anew but, rather, to assay
the bankruptcy court's factfinding for clear error.2 See Boroff v.
2
Our standard of review is not affected by the fact that this
is a second-tier appeal. Because our review of the BAP's decision
is de novo, see Smith v. Pritchett (In re Smith), 586 F.3d 69, 73
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Tully (In re Tully), 818 F.2d 106, 109 (1st Cir. 1987). While the
evidence as a whole is capable of supporting the inference of
knowing falsity drawn by the attorney, it likewise is capable of
supporting the inference of inconclusiveness drawn by the
bankruptcy court. That ends this aspect of the matter: it is
apodictic that where the facts can support two plausible but
conflicting interpretations of a body of evidence, the factfinder's
choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. See Gannett v.
Carp (In re Carp), 340 F.3d 15, 25 (1st Cir. 2003); see also United
States v. Romain, 393 F.3d 63, 69 (1st Cir. 2004).
Third: The attorney argues pejoratively that the debtor
was shown to be a liar and that the debtor's "dishonest and
untrustworthy" testimony undermines the bankruptcy court's
factfinding. This argument is wide of the mark. The bankruptcy
court did not rest its decision on any illusions about the debtor's
veracity. To the contrary, the bankruptcy court found much of her
testimony to be self-serving and not deserving of credence. See
deBenedictis, 2013 WL 1342479, at *2.
Taking this lack of veracity into account, however, it
proceeded to find that the attorney's proof was not preponderant.
See id. at *7-8. We are not aware of any rule that mandates a
finding of nondischargeability against a party simply because her
(1st Cir. 2009), we look through that decision and directly review
the bankruptcy court's findings of fact for clear error, see id.;
see also Fed. R. Bankr. P. 8013.
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testimony lacks candor. Although we do not countenance untruthful
testimony, a finding of nondischargeability requires more than a
showing that the debtor exhibited a serious character flaw. The
attorney, who had the burden of proof, made no such additional
showing here.
We need go no further. The Bankruptcy Code is designed
to give debtors a fresh start, and exceptions to this principle
should be narrowly construed. Rutanen v. Baylis (In re Baylis),
313 F.3d 9, 17 (1st Cir. 2002).
In this instance, the attorney did not carry her burden
of proving her entitlement to such an exception. The courts below
explained at length why the attorney's arguments (including
arguments not mentioned above) were unavailing, and it would serve
no useful purpose to repastinate that well-plowed ground. It
suffices to say that the attorney's appeal, though full of sound
and fury, is lacking in substance.
Affirmed.
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