Jubber v. Defendants re C.W. Mining Company Coal Proceeds (In re C.W. Mining Company)
PUBLISHED
The Court consolidated various adversary proceedings to resolve the question of who was entitled to the coal mined by the Debtor and the accounts created by the Debtor's contracts with coal purchasers, which were subsequently assigned or sold to the Debtor's agent. On summary judgment, the Court held that the Uniform Commercial Code governs the assignment or sale of the accounts. But the Court also held that the accounts were, for purposes of the trustee's motion, not property of the Debtor or the bankruptcy estate. The trustee's motion assumed that the Debtor sold the accounts to its agent, and a seller of accounts does not retain a legal or equitable interest in them pursuant to Utah Code Ann. § 70A-9a-318(1). The Court further held that, because the Debtor's agent had not perfected its security interests in the accounts, the trustee could avoid those interests using his power as a hypothetical lien creditor under § 544(a)(1). But because § 544(a)(1) does not provide a basis to avoid a prepetition transfer of property, the trustee did not have the ability to recover the payments made to the Debtor's agent before the petition date.