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Case:   In re Coralee Edwards, 603 B.R. 516, Chapter 13 bankruptcy case no. 13-25698, amended opinion entered on May 22, 2019

 

Court: U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida, West Palm Beach Division

 

Judge: Erik P. Kimball

 

Edwards is an example of a court reaching a preferred conclusion rather than one dictated by controlling law. It is notable for the extent to which the presiding judge rationalizes his ruling by relying upon a Supreme Court case which is only superficially analogous to the case at bar, but fundamentally distinguishable upon closer examination. In the process, the Bankruptcy Court casually disregards binding Eleventh Circuit precedent that has been disfavored by debtor-friendly judges within Florida’s Southern District Bankruptcy Court for the better part of two decades.

 

The facts of the case are not uncommon in Chapter 13 bankruptcies: the debtor obtains confirmation of a plan which provides for curing a pre-petition arrearage and maintaining post-petition monthly payments on a claim secured by the debtor’s principal residence, for which the final payment is due under the subject note subsequent to the debtor’s final plan payment. For any number of reasons, the confirmed plan does not accurately provide for the allowed secured claim. In Edwards, the specific issue was an inaccurate post-petition monthly payment amount. The debtor sought and was granted a post-confirmation modification to her Chapter 13 plan which contemplated an aggregate of post-petition monthly mortgage payments to her lender, Wells Fargo, in an amount approximately $5,400 less than the sum required by the lender’s allowed claim (allegedly due to a “scrivener’s error” in the modified plan as to the payment amount). As a result, the debtor emerged from her Chapter 13 proceeding after completing all payments required by the confirmed and modified plan with a post-petition arrearage owed on her mortgage (there was no dispute, however, that the pre-petition arrearage had been cured).

 

Insisting that the orders confirming her plan and allowing its subsequent modification bound Wells Fargo to the monthly payment amounts actually paid through the bankruptcy, the debtor sought a ruling that any discrepancy with the lender’s claim was discharged and unrecoverable. Wells Fargo opposed this relief, contending that relevant provisions of the Bankruptcy Code prohibit Chapter 13 modification of claims secured by the debtor’s principal residence. It therefore argued that the finality of the orders approving the debtor’s modified confirmed plan could not affect the amount required to be paid pursuant to the terms of the subject loan documents, and such remained recoverable notwithstanding the debtor’s bankruptcy discharge.

 

The secured creditor’s position in Edwards was hardly controversial; the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit considered a case with a nearly identical set of facts approximately sixteen years previously. See In re Bateman, 331 F.3d 821 (11th Cir. 2003), which was the authority relied upon by Wells Fargo in Edwards. There, the confirmed Chapter 13 plan provided for a pre-petition arrearage on the debtor’s homestead mortgage in an amount nearly $30,000 less than the figure stated in the creditor’s allowed claim. As in Edwards, the creditor neither objected to its treatment via the confirmed plan, nor did the debtor object to the mortgage claim before the confirmation order was entered. Instead, the debtor objected to the claim post-confirmation upon being alerted to the discrepancy by the Chapter 13 trustee. Judge Cristol of the Southern District of Florida Bankruptcy Court granted the objection, determining that the mortgagee, Universal American Mortgage Company, was bound by the confirmation order and could not seek to collect the resulting shortfall after the bankruptcy.

 

Universal appealed. After the Bankruptcy Court’s ruling was initially affirmed by the District Court, the Eleventh Circuit reversed. The Circuit Court’s analysis focused upon the tension between the finality of the order confirming the debtor’s plan and the special treatment afforded creditors secured by claims against the debtor’s principal residence under Chapter 13, as specifically provided via §1322(b)(2). To resolve this tension, the Eleventh Circuit charted a middle path. It recognized that the confirmation order was binding pursuant to §1327(a) (“[t]he provisions of a confirmed plan bind the debtor and each creditor, whether or not the claim of such creditor is provided for by the plan, and whether or not such creditor has objected to, has accepted, or has rejected the plan.”)

 

It also recognized that §1322(b)(2) allows a Chapter 13 plan to modify the rights of holders of secured claims, other than claims secured only by a security interest in real property that is the debtor’s principal residence. Indeed, the Circuit Court expressly noted that its decision was made within the specific context of “the special treatment afforded mortgage lenders by §1322(b)(2)” and therefore no opinion was expressed “as to the result with regard to a general secured creditor.” Accordingly, the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in Bateman turned upon whether the mortgage lender’s claim – secured by the debtor’s principal residence – survived the confirmation of a plan which provided a lesser amount for the pre-petition arrearage.

 

Citing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Nobelman v. Am. Savs. Bank, 508 U.S. 324, 113 S.Ct. 2106, 124 L.Ed.2d 228 (1993), the Bateman Court acknowledged the legislative history underlying §1322(b)(2) which contemplated encouragement of lenders to deploy capital within the residential mortgage market. As a result, the “anti-modification” provision (as §1322(b)(2) is otherwise known) prohibits “any modification of a homestead mortgagee’s rights in the Chapter 13 plan.” The Eleventh Circuit thereafter looked to its own precedent holding that secured creditors in general (even those holding claims secured by property other than the debtor’s principal residence) need not file a proof of claim in a bankruptcy proceeding to the extent the creditor can always rely upon its lien to recover the amount owed by the debtor. See, e.g., In re Folendore, 862 F.2d 1537, 1539 (11th Cir.1989) [reversed on other grounds as discussed in In re Waits, 793 F.3d 1267 (11th Cir.2015)]. In other words, the Bateman Court recognized the venerable principle that unchallenged liens pass through bankruptcy unaffected by anything other than payment of the debt.

 

Rejecting the Bankruptcy Court’s conclusion that “[a]s a matter of substance the Chapter 13 plan provided an objection to the claim which placed a duty on the mortgagee to pursue the matter if the $21,600.00 was not acceptable”, the Circuit Court observed that Universal’s claim was “deemed allowed” by virtue of Bateman’s failure to object to the claim before her plan was confirmed. Merely obtaining confirmation of a plan reflecting a lower pre-petition arrearage owed to the lender could not, therefore, “constitute a constructive objection” by the debtor to the mortgagee’s claim.

 

Nevertheless, the Eleventh Circuit acknowledged that the order confirming Bateman’s plan was final and binding since Universal had notice of its terms and failed to object prior to confirmation. Hence, the middle path: although the lender was bound by the terms of the confirmed plan to accept a lower amount for the pre-petition arrearage than was listed in its allowed claim, the Circuit Court determined that §1322(b)(2) required any shortfall to survive the completion of the plan and Universal would thereafter be permitted to seek its collection (against both the collateral as well as Bateman personally) notwithstanding the debtor’s successful completion of her bankruptcy.

 

Apart from Bateman’s focus upon the mortgagee’s pre-petition arrearage claim, the facts of Edwards (involving instead a discrepancy with the post-petition monthly payment amount owed to the homestead mortgagee) are otherwise indistinguishable. Both cases involved confirmed Chapter 13 plans that paid homestead secured creditors less than the amounts required by their allowed claims. So why did Judge Kimball in Edwards rule against Wells Fargo and determine that, contrary to Bateman (and despite §1322(b)(2)), the lender was bound to forfeit the shortfall between its allowed claim and the lower amount paid to it through the confirmed plan?

 

According to Judge Kimball, a U.S. Supreme Court opinion relied upon by Ms. Edwards – United Student Aid Funds, Inc. v. Espinosa, 559 U.S. 260, 130 S.Ct. 1367, 176 L.Ed.2d 158 (2010) – overruled Bateman. More specifically, Judge Kimball opined in Edwards that “the Eleventh Circuit’s determination in Bateman that the anti-modification provision of section 1322(b)(2) prevails over the binding effect of a confirmed plan under section 1327(a) is not consistent with the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Espinosa.” Thus, a brief examination of Espinosa is required to illustrate precisely why Judge Kimball’s conclusion in this regard is not correct.

 

Rather than a claim secured by the debtor’s principal residence, Espinosa pertained instead to an entirely unsecured debt for a student loan. As in Bateman (and Edwards), however, the lender in Espinosa, United Student Aid Funds, Inc., received an amount under the debtor’s confirmed Chapter 13 plan which was less than that stated in the lender’s allowed claim. The discrepancy arose from the debtor’s treatment of United’s claim in the plan, which proposed to repay only an amount representing the unpaid principal balance of the loan while seeking to discharge the remaining balance for accrued interest. This resulted in a shortfall of some $4,500 as compared to the lender’s allowed – yet unsecured – claim. And again as was the case in both Bateman and Edwards, Mr. Espinosa did not object to his lender’s claim (nor did United object to its lower treatment in the plan) before his plan was confirmed. Approximately six years after Mr. Espinosa successfully completed his Chapter 13 plan, he filed a motion with the Bankruptcy Court to preclude his student lender from proceeding with collection efforts for the outstanding accrued interest that was not paid through the bankruptcy. His lender filed a cross-motion asking the Bankruptcy Court to set aside as void the confirmation order which incorrectly provided for its claim. After the Bankruptcy Court ruled in Espinosa’s favor, that ruling was ultimately upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before the lender sought, and was granted, certiorari review by the Supreme Court.

 

Of course, the Supreme Court in Espinosa had no occasion to consider the effect of §1322(b)(2) because United’s claim (unlike those at issue in Bateman and Edwards) was not secured by the debtor’s principal residence. Instead, United relied upon different provisions – §§523(a)(8) and 1328(a)(2) – to argue that the Bankruptcy Code prohibits debtors from discharging unpaid debts for student loans in the absence of an adversary proceeding filed by the debtor, in which the debtor must prove the existence of undue hardship if the student loan debt were excepted from discharge. Thus, United maintained that the accrued interest component of its allowed unsecured claim survived Mr. Espinosa’s discharge because the required adversary proceeding was never filed. It further contended that the order confirming Mr. Espinosa’s plan with an insufficient amount paid towards its allowed claim was “void”, and therefore of no binding effect, as a result.

 

Notably, the Espinosa Court considered these arguments through the specific lens of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4) which permits a final order (such as the confirmation order challenged by Mr. Espinosa’s student lender) to be set aside if it was “void” upon entry. The Court emphasized this point via footnote 8 of the opinion: “Because United brought this action on a motion for relief from judgment under Rule 60(b)(4), our holding is confined to that provision. We express no view on the terms upon which other provisions of the Bankruptcy Rules may entitle a debtor or creditor to postjudgment relief.” This is yet another distinction not shared by Bateman or Edwards – the secured creditors in those cases did not directly challenge the pertinent confirmation order(s) via Rule 60(b)(4), or otherwise (although the lender in Bateman did unsuccessfully seek dismissal of the bankruptcy), and instead challenged its finality only as it pertained to the incorrect amounts for the debtor’s homestead secured debts.

 

The Espinosa Court, therefore, undertook a very limited analysis to determine whether the challenged confirmation order in the case before it qualified as “void” so as to trigger Rule 60(b)(4) as a means of collateral attack. The Court defined such a void order as one “so affected by a fundamental infirmity that the infirmity may be raised even after the judgment becomes final.” It thereafter specified that only two categories of fundamentally infirm orders qualify as “void” sufficient for Rule 60(b)(4) purposes: a judgment afflicted by jurisdictional error; or one entered in violation of a party’s due process rights to notice and an opportunity to be heard.

 

The Supreme Court had little difficulty in concluding that Mr. Espinosa’s confirmation order fell within neither category, and consequently could not qualify as that type of final order subject to challenge by Rule 60(b)(4). As to the first, Mr. Espinosa’s student lender wisely conceded that the Bankruptcy Court had sufficient jurisdiction to enter the confirmation order. Although the confirmed plan contemplated discharging the debtor’s student loan interest in the absence of the statutorily-required adversary proceeding and finding of undue hardship, the Espinosa Court characterized these prerequisites as procedural rather than jurisdictional. Because mere legal error does not render a judgment “void” for Rule 60(b)(4) purposes, this procedural infirmity did not affect the finality of the confirmation order.

 

And as for whether Mr. Espinosa’s student lender received adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard regarding the disparate treatment of its claim within the confirmed plan, the Supreme Court unhesitatingly concluded that the lender’s due process rights were upheld. The Espinosa Court observed that due process requires only that notice which is “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” Upon recognition that Mr. Espinosa’s lender received actual notice of the proposed plan before it was confirmed and nevertheless failed to object to (or appeal) the confirmation order, the Supreme Court found that the lender received due process even in the absence of the statutorily-required adversary proceeding. Accordingly, the Espinosa Court concluded that under these facts United failed to establish a cognizable basis to overturn the confirmation order via Rule 60(b)(4).

 

Ultimately, therefore, Mr. Espinosa’s student lender remained bound by the confirmation order and could no longer pursue recovery of the accrued interest component of its claim as a result of the debtor’s discharge. Distilled to its essence, the Espinosa decision is really quite limited, however. All that can be gleaned from the decision is that a confirmation order is not “void” for Rule 60(b)(4) purposes merely because its entry is marred by procedural error – so long as affected creditors receive sufficient notice. So why did Judge Kimball determine in Edwards that Espinosa overruled Bateman? Ironically, the ultimate holding in Espinosa appears to be perfectly consistent with Bateman – in both decisions, the subject confirmation order was upheld as valid and binding, despite being afflicted with procedural error, because the affected creditors received adequate notice of the plan and failed to object to, or appeal, the confirmation order.

 

In Espinosa, this resulted in the lender’s shortfall being discharged and unrecoverable. In Bateman, the lender’s claim survived confirmation of a plan paying a significantly lower amount, and the lender was permitted to pursue the shortfall after all plan payments were completed. Hence, Judge Kimball in Edwards appears to have extrapolated from Espinosa that there can never be any types of allowed claims which override contrary provisions in a Chapter 13 plan once that plan has been confirmed. However, a careful review of Espinosa reveals the precise opposite. Specifically, the Supreme Court expressly recognized that its holding was premised upon the inherent dischargeability of student loan debt as per the pertinent provisions of the Bankruptcy Code. See footnote 10 of the Espinosa opinion:

 

“Sections 1328(a) and 523(a)(8) provide that student loan debt is dischargeable in a Chapter 13 proceeding if a court makes a finding of undue hardship. In contrast, other provisions in Chapter 13 provide that certain other debts are not dischargeable under any circumstances. See, e.g., §§523(a)(1)(B), (C) (specified tax debts); §523(a)(5) (domestic support obligations); §523(a)(9) (debts “caused by” the debtor’s unlawful operation of a vehicle while intoxicated). We express no view on the conditions under which an order confirming the discharge of one of these types of debt could be set aside as void.” (latter emphasis added)

 

In other words, the Supreme Court was comfortable in finding that Mr. Espinosa’s confirmation order bound his student lender to an amount less than the lender’s allowed claim primarily because the Bankruptcy Code does in fact contemplate the dischargeability of student loan debt (albeit only after the procedural – rather than jurisdictional – requirement of an adversary proceeding has been successfully pursued by the debtor). The Court therefore limited its holding via footnote 10 and made clear that the same conclusion would not necessarily follow with respect to other types of debts which are categorically non-dischargeable, such as certain tax debts or domestic support obligations. Thus, no generalizations as to the primacy of confirmation orders over allowed claims can be made from Espinosa without reference to the specific type of debt sought to be discharged.

 

Indeed, the Espinosa Court’s focus upon the dischargeability of the student loan debt under consideration raises another distinction not shared by Bateman (or, for that matter, Edwards): a bankruptcy discharge pertains only to personal, rather than in rem, liability. See Johnson v. Home State Bank, 501 U.S. 78, 84 (1991) (“Rather, a bankruptcy discharge extinguishes only one mode of enforcing a claim — namely, an action against the debtor in personam — while leaving intact another — namely, an action against the debtor in rem.”) The significance of this factor cannot be overstated: even if a Chapter 13 discharge eliminates a secured creditor’s ability to pursue a judgment against the debtor individually, it has no effect upon that creditor’s entitlement to pursue recovery of the collateral securing the debt to the extent the amount owed is not satisfied through the Chapter 13 plan. Hence the fundamental inapplicability of Espinosa’s holding to secured claims; the Supreme Court in that case was confronted only with the debtor’s discharge of his personal liability for a student loan. But since a Chapter 13 discharge does nothing to eliminate in rem liability based upon a secured claim, Judge Kimball’s reliance upon Espinosa in Edwards is severely misplaced. See, e.g., Dewsnup v. Timm, 502 U.S. 410, 419 (1992), wherein the Supreme Court recounts more than a century of its precedent in which creditors’ liens were consistently found to survive bankruptcy discharges without reduction for anything other than payment of the underlying debt. None of this precedent is even referenced within Espinosa, and it is therefore difficult to conclude that the Supreme Court had any intention to silently overrule a basic tenet of American bankruptcy jurisprudence: liens pass through bankruptcy unaffected.

 

Nor is it any easier to conclude that Espinosa similarly forecloses a homestead mortgagee’s right to pursue the debtor individually for any deficiency resulting after the collateral’s sale. The Espinosa Court itself approvingly cited to the Nobelman decision (relied upon by the Eleventh Circuit in Bateman, and cited above) in which the Supreme Court expressly found that a creditor secured by the debtor’s principal residence enjoys the right to pursue the debtor individually to the extent sale of the collateral is insufficient to satisfy the debt, and that such right is immune to modification per §1322(b)(2). The Espinosa Court certainly gave no indication it was overruling Nobelman to that extent, and it would therefore seem that debts protected from Chapter 13 modification via §1322(b)(2) are among those types – referenced in Espinosa at footnote 10, quoted above – that are not dischargeable under any circumstances, and for which “no view” was expressed. Absent the Supreme Court’s express acknowledgement that a homestead mortgage can be modified by a confirmed Chapter 13 plan, despite §1322(b)(2), Judge Kimball’s conclusion that Espinosa so held appears untenable.

 

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Edwards decision is that it was rendered shortly after the Eleventh Circuit itself acknowledged the foregoing points, while simultaneously affirming the continuing validity of Bateman, long after the Supreme Court decided Espinosa. See Dukes v. Suncoast Credit Union (In re Dukes), 909 F.3d 1306 (11th Cir.2018). Approximately six months prior to Judge Kimball deciding Edwards, the Eleventh Circuit in Dukes considered whether a Chapter 13 plan which merely references the debtor’s intention to directly pay her homestead mortgagee outside of the plan “provides for” that secured debt for purposes of discharging the debtor’s personal liability upon completion of the bankruptcy. The Dukes Court therefore undertook an analysis of the effect of the debtor’s Chapter 13 discharge upon debt secured by her principal residence. It initially noted that even if the debtor’s mortgage debt was “provided for” within her repayment plan, Chapter 13’s discharge provision – §1328(a)(1) – specifically excepts so-called “long-term” debts (those with maturity dates occurring beyond the date of the final plan payment) from the scope of the discharge: “So, once the plan terminates, the debtor must continue to maintain her long-term obligations even though her short-term obligations have been discharged.” In other words, long-term debts treated within a Chapter 13 plan (such as the debtor’s homestead mortgage at issue in Edwards) remain enforceable against the debtor even after the plan has been successfully completed and a discharge issued.

 

Nevertheless, Judge Kimball in Edwards reached an entirely different result. Via footnote 8 of the opinion, he boldly suggests (without any semblance of supporting authority) that the portion of the debtor’s mortgage debt coming due over the life of her plan is considered “short-term” debt included within the scope of the debtor’s discharge: “So-called “long-term” mortgage obligations that arose after the Debtor finished making payments under the 6MP are not affected by the discharge or this order. See section 1328(a)(1). Only the Debtor’s “short-term” mortgage obligations, those obligations covered by the life of the 6MP, including the delinquency of $ 4,810.37, are discharged.” Judge Kimball therefore had no trouble concluding that the shortfall resulting from Ms. Edwards’ confirmed and modified plan paying too little towards her post-petition mortgage payments was discharged, merely because those payments came due during the pendency of the plan.

 

However, the operative Bankruptcy Code provision – §1322(b)(5) – clearly defines “long-term” obligations as those for which “the last payment is due after the date on which the final payment under the plan is due”. There is no bifurcation of such debt into “short-term” and “long-term” components for purposes of inclusion within the scope of the debtor’s discharge; if the debt in question matures beyond the date upon which the final plan payment is due, it is excepted from the debtor’s discharge in its entirety and without regard for that portion of the debt paid through, or coming due during the life of, the completed plan. The Eleventh Circuit gave no indication in Dukes that any portion of long-term debt is dischargeable, and Judge Kimball’s subsequent, contrary ruling appears irreconcilable as a result.

 

So too does that portion of Edwards which concludes that a Chapter 13 confirmation order can modify an allowed claim secured by the debtor’s principal residence, so long as the creditor thereby secured receives proper notice of the plan and fails to object prior to confirmation. Directly to the contrary, the Eleventh Circuit in Dukes unequivocally held that §1322(b)(2) insulates the homestead mortgagee’s claim from any modification proposed via the confirmed plan: “The antimodification provision prohibits a plan from modifying ‘the rights of [a] holder[ ] of … a claim secured only by a security interest in real property that is the debtor’s principal residence.’ Clearly, a discharge of a debtor’s obligations under his residential mortgage would dramatically modify the rights of the holder of that mortgage.”

 

Citing to the Supreme Court’s Nobelman decision, the Dukes Court emphasized that §1322(b)(2) prohibited the debtor’s attempt to avoid personal liability for a deficiency judgment as an impermissible modification of her mortgage lender’s rights:

 

“A creditor’s rights ‘protected from modification by § 1322(b)(2)’ are the rights under the original loan instruments as defined by state law. Nobelman , 508 U.S. at 329–30, 113 S.Ct. 2106. Under Florida law (the law governing the Credit Union’s mortgage), the Credit Union has the right to seek a deficiency judgment against Debtor. See Fla. Stat. § 702.06 ; see also Royal Palm Corp. Ctr. Ass’n v. PNC Bank, NA , 89 So.3d 923, 929–33 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012) (discussing a mortgagee’s rights under Florida law to both foreclose on the property and obtain a deficiency judgment against the mortgagor). By terminating the Credit Union’s right to obtain an in personam judgment against the debtor, discharge undoubtedly modifies the Credit Union’s rights and runs afoul of the antimodification provision. See Universal Am. Mortg. Co. v. Bateman (In re Bateman) , 331 F.3d 821, 822 (11th Cir. 2003) (holding that a mortgagee’s secured claim for arrearage ‘survives … to the extent it is not satisfied in full by payments under the plan, or otherwise satisfied under the terms [of] § 1325(a)(5), because to permit otherwise would deny the effect of 11 U.S.C. § 1322(b)(2)’).” (emphasis added)

 

Why would the Eleventh Circuit unqualifiedly cite to Bateman in Dukes if the former had been overruled by the Supreme Court in Espinosa approximately eight years prior? More importantly, why would Judge Kimball conclude in Edwards that Bateman was overruled by Espinosa approximately six months after the Eleventh Circuit reaffirmed Bateman’s continuing validity in Dukes? Having had the opportunity to personally appear before him on behalf of a creditor in a contested proceeding many years ago, I know that Judge Kimball is highly intelligent with a firm grasp of bankruptcy law. He would not have decided Edwards without researching the issues, and that research surely would have revealed the existence of Dukes. If I am correct in this regard, it leads to a seemingly inescapable conclusion: the result in Edwards was a product of Judge Kimball’s bias rather than a correct application of controlling law.

 

This is a problem I have experienced firsthand throughout the Southern District of Florida Bankruptcy Court since Bateman was decided nearly twenty years ago; it is, unfortunately, not limited to Judge Kimball. In fact I appeared before Judge Kimball’s predecessor on behalf of a homestead mortgagee in order to oppose a motion nearly identical to that litigated in Edwards. Just as in Edwards, I argued that Bateman precluded the debtor’s attempt to discharge any portion of his mortgage debt not provided for within his confirmed Chapter 13 plan. Just as in Edwards, the court disregarded Bateman (the judge claimed, without elaboration, that it “didn’t apply” in our case) and ruled that the shortfall between what was paid through the plan and what was actually owed to the homestead mortgagee was discharged and unrecoverable (neither against the collateral nor the debtor individually). As a young attorney, I was shocked that a court would so blatantly ignore binding precedent. In retrospect, it was an early indication that the practice of law is not always consistent with the ideals taught in law school.

 

With many more years of experience amassed since then, I now realize how frail and imperfect our judicial system actually is. It is entirely dependent upon the competence of presiding judges. Too often – and as is precisely illustrated by the Edwards decision – judges allow their personal bias to control the outcome. That represents a total systemic failure because it defeats the very purpose of the exercise. All litigants, regardless of whether they are impecunious individuals or wealthy corporations, are entitled to an impartial tribunal through which their disputes can be resolved pursuant to controlling law.

 

So long as decisions like Edwards continue to prevail, however, the law within the Southern District of Florida will instead remain out of control.