PBGC, the trustee of a pension plan administered by the CF&I debtors prior to filing their bankruptcy petitions, sought a determination of the priority of its claims for unpaid minimum funding contributions ("unpaid funding") and unfunded prepetition and postpetition benefit liabilities ("unfunded liability") in the bankruptcy court. The bankruptcy court ruled that: (1) unpaid funding claims were not entitled either to administrative expense priority under 11 U.S.C. § 503(b)(1)(B), or tax priority under 11 U.S.C. § 507(a)(7); (2) only a small portion of the unfunded liability claims were entitled to tax priority; and (3) the CF&I debtors were jointly and severally liable for PBGC's claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"). Both sides appealed. The district court agreed with the bankruptcy court that the CF&I debtors' liability for unpaid funding arose prepetition and, therefore, the bankruptcy automatic stay precluded imposition of either an ERISA lien or an Internal Revenue Code lien for those claims. Since tax priority is given only to liens, not claims that never become liens, the bankruptcy court correctly ruled that the unpaid funding claims were not entitled to tax priority status. Additionally, because the unpaid funding claims were not entitled to tax priority, they were likewise not entitled to postpetition interest. The district court also agreed with the bankruptcy court that, under In re Amarex, Inc., 853 F.2d 1526 (10th Cir. 1988), the unpaid funding claims, all of which arose prepetition, did not qualify as administrative expenses. PBGC asserted tax priority with respect to a very small portion of its total unfunded liability claims, based on a statutory lien that attaches to an employer's property upon termination of a pension plan, but the district court agreed with the bankruptcy court's conclusion that, since the plan was terminated postpetition, that lien never attached. Finally, the district court held that the bankruptcy court had erred by deferring to PBGC's determination of the discount rate to be applied to its unfunded liability claims, and remanded for an independent discount rate determination. The district court then rejected the CF&I debtors' claim of improper valuation of the unpaid funding claims, as moot, and held that ERISA's joint and several liability provision was not overridden by the bankruptcy principle of equal distribution among creditors.

This matter came before the court on two motions for summary judgment by the chapter 7 trustee, which challenged both applicability of the Negotiated Rates Act of 1993 ("NRA") and the constitutionality of the NRA itself. Trustee sought to recover over $2.9 million in freight undercharge claims from the defendant and other shippers, and application of NRA terms to those claims would result in the loss of the vast bulk of the estate's claims. The court determined that such retroactive elimination of the property rights of trustee and the estate's creditors would be more similar to a complete taking of legal rights than to simple "regulation." The court expressed serious doubt as to the NRA's constitutionality if such an interpretation of it was imposed. However, the court found that the NRA could be interpreted in a way that avoided that constitutional challenge. Thus, the property rights of an estate in bankruptcy are defined by bankruptcy law as of the commencement of the bankruptcy case. Bankruptcy law remains the law of the case unless expressly changed by Congress. In section 9 of the NRA, Congress specifically provided that the NRA would not limit or otherwise affect Title 11 of the United States Code. Accordingly, the court held that the freight undercharge claims asserted by trustee were unaffected by the NRA's provisions.

Court denied a motion to dismiss, or to alternately lift stay, that asserted bad faith filing in a chapter 7 case. The motion was brought by a director and 50% shareholder of the debtor, who was also an oversecured creditor foreclosing on the estate's principal asset. The debtor's only other director had signed the chapter 7 petition, without the knowledge or consent of the remaining director, for the purpose of preventing the foreclosure. The court acknowledged the general rule that corporate authorization to file bankruptcy requires a quorum and majority vote of the board, but noted that Nevada law creates an exception to the rule where one of two directors has an interest adverse to the corporation, and would have voted not to authorize the bankruptcy filing. Failure of the remaining director to obtain corporate authorization to file the bankruptcy did not constitute grounds for dismissing the case where the remaining director's interests would be protected, and equity preserved for remaining creditors and equity interest holders. The parties relied upon affidavits that were not admitted into evidence at the hearing, and that contained inadmissible evidence. The court considered the Fed. R. Civ. P. 43(e) exception to the general rule that testimony shall be taken orally in open court. The court discussed the necessity for formal admission of affidavits, but found that the parties waived any objection to the use or content of the affidavits, despite their questionable evidentiary status.

Reorganized debtor objected to an application for payment of administrative claims that was filed by debtor's former in-house counsel ("Counsel"), purportedly on his own behalf and on behalf of more than 200 former employees of debtor. The application was filed on the last possible day to file administrative claims, and sought allowance of severance and layoff benefit claims as administrative expenses pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 503(a) and (b). Counsel had no attorney-client relationship with the employees, did not obtain express authorizations to file claims on the employees' behalf, did not send the listed employees copies of the application that was filed, and subsequently withdrew his personal claim and his "representation" of the employees. The court determined that the application was not a class certification but, rather, a "class claim," which is not permitted in the Tenth Circuit pursuant to Sheftelman v. Standard Metals Corp. (In re Standard Metals Corp.), 817 F.2d 625, 630 (10th Cir. 1987), modified on other grounds, 839 F.2d 1383 (10th Cir. 1987), cert. dismissed, 109 S. Ct. 201 (1988). The court further indicated that, even if the application was not an impermissible class claim, Counsel's failure to obtain express authorization to file claims on behalf of the employees, as well as his withdrawal as the class representative, rendered the employee claims invalid. Finally, the court considered employees' request to vacate the prior bar date for their claims based on excusable neglect, but concluded that claimants had failed to prove the standards for mistake or excusable neglect that were articulated in Pioneer Inv. Servs. Co. v. Brunswick Assoc. Ltd. Partnership, 113 S. Ct. 1489 (1993).