Before the court were three debtors' motions, pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 327, to employ the same counsel in separate chapter 11 cases. Due to existing prepetition debts between the debtors, the court found an actual conflict that rendered the attorney an "interested" party within the scope of 11 U.S.C. § 101(13)(E), and thus subject to disqualification under § 327(a). Further, as the conflict was actual with the specific debtors, rather than simply hypothetical or theoretical, disqualification was mandatory and the motions to employ were denied.

Debtor brought this adversary action, claiming that defendant creditor was obligated to apply the fair market value of debtor's properties to its notes, and that its refusal to do so constituted conversion, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract. Creditor counterclaimed, asserting that, since the fair market value of the properties at issue had yet to be determined, it should be allowed three months after any award of money to debtor in which to pursue a deficiency judgment. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court held that: (1) Debtor/plaintiff asserted a jury demand in its adversary complaint but failed to request a withdrawal of reference, which constituted a waiver of the jury demand. (2) Under Utah law, when a secured creditor sells collateral securing a debt in a non-judicial sale, the creditor must commence a deficiency action, pursuant to Utah Code Ann. § 57-1-32, in order to preserve its claim for a deficiency. (3) However, since creditor's notes were secured by more than one property, creditor was not required to commence a deficiency action until three months after the last property securing that specific debt is sold. On one of creditor's notes, one of the properties securing the note had not yet been sold, and creditor was not precluded by § 57-1-32 from filing a deficiency action. On creditor's other note, however, all properties had been sold and the three-month period had run, which precluded creditor from filing a deficiency action on that note, whether or not the fair market values of those properties had been determined.

Debtor's IRA accounts were subject to a prepetition writ of garnishment, but debtor claimed the accounts as exempt property in his chapter 7 bankruptcy. The judgment creditor objected and moved for relief from the automatic stay, asserting it held a perfected lien on the accounts. The court determined that, in order to be exempt under Utah law (Utah Code Ann. § 78-23-6(3)), an account must be "an annuity or other similar plan," and that most courts had ruled that IRA accounts were not exempt under similar statutes. Noting that public policy concerns dictate whether a particular trust fund may be exempted from a bankruptcy estate, the court determined that it would be unjust to allow debtors to frustrate the rights of their creditors by claiming that accounts to which they have easy access are "annuities or other similar plans." Therefore, the court granted creditor's motion for relief from stay, finding it "clear" that IRAs were not exempt property under Utah law.

Creditor brought a non-dischargeability action against the debtor under 11 U.S.C. § 523(b)(2)(B), based on a line of credit that had been granted on the basis of a materially false financial statement. Debtor had signed the financial statement as vice president of a small non-party corporation, and had personally guaranteed the corporation's debt. In response to Grogan v. Garner, 498 U.S. 279 (1991), the court expressed a need to reconcile the newly imposed preponderance of the evidence standard in non-dischargeability cases with its obligation to narrowly construe exceptions to dischargeability in favor of the debtor. The court held that, since strict construction is applicable to statutory interpretation rather than to evidentiary burden, that standard was therefore unaffected by Grogan's change of the evidentiary standard. Applying a preponderance of the evidence standard, the court found that plaintiff had not established either that debtor had actual knowledge that the financial statement he signed, which had been prepared by another corporate employee, was false, or that his signing of the document had been reckless. Without proof of either actual intent to defraud or reckless disregard of the truth, the court concluded that plaintiff had failed to establish that its claim against debtor was non-dischargeable under § 523(b)(2)(B).