VENTERS, Bankruptcy Judge.
Debtor Gregory Boyher appeals the order of the bankruptcy court approving the Chapter 7 Trustee's "Amended Final Report, Proposed Distribution, and Motion for Abandonment," over Mr. Boyher's objection. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the bankruptcy court's order.
This matter arises out of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case originally filed on February 18, 1999, and closed, without controversy, on August 22, 2000.
On May 31, 2007, the Debtors filed a motion to reopen the case to obtain the administration of the Debtors' potential interest in the proceeds of a settlement of a class action lawsuit entitled David C. McLean, et al. v. First Horizon Home Loan Corporation, Case No. 00-CV-228530, then pending in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri. The Debtors filed an amended Schedule B to disclose their interest in the settlement. The bankruptcy court granted the Debtors' motion and Stuart Radloff was reappointed as the Chapter 7 trustee ("Trustee") of their bankruptcy estate.
Several months later, the Trustee filed a "Motion to Approve Compromise," stating, inter alia, that the Debtors expected to receive approximately $22,870.13 based on their claim in the class action lawsuit; that the Trustee and Debtors disagreed over the estate's interest in the settlement proceeds; that the parties agreed to split the settlement proceeds, regardless of the ultimate recovery; and that the Debtors waived their right to make a claim to the amounts paid into the bankruptcy estate by exemption or otherwise, except as provided for in the agreement.
On October 20, 2008, the bankruptcy court granted the Trustee's motion. Paragraphs 5 and 8 of the order are of particular relevance to this appeal. Paragraph 5 states: "Debtors received a settlement check in payment of the Claim in the approximate amount of $22,870.13, (`the Settlement Proceeds') and turned over that check to Trustee."
Paragraph 8 states:
On October 21, 2009, Trustee filed a Final Report and Account, indicating that he received $25,165.29—not $22,870.13 as had been anticipated—from the settlement with First Horizon, and from that amount he paid $2,200 to the IRS and $800 to the Missouri Department of Revenue in "estimated" tax payments, and $11,091.37, representing one-half of the remainder of the Settlement Proceeds, to the Debtors.
On May 4, 2011, the Trustee filed a motion to reopen the case to administer $1,972.35 that the IRS had rendered from the estimated tax payments.
On October 12, 2011, Mr. Boyher filed an objection
The bankruptcy court overruled Mr. Boyher's objection to the Trustee's Amended Final Report based largely on
For the reasons stated below, we find that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in interpreting its December 12, 2008 order, to overrule the Debtor's objection and to approve the Trustee's Amended Final Report.
As noted above, the bankruptcy court approved the Amended Final Report based on the statement in the December 12, 2008 order that "upon accepting said share of the Settlement Proceeds [Debtors] are deemed to have waived all claims to any part of Trustee's portion of the Settlement Proceeds." Implied in this ruling is a finding that the money the Trustee used to make the estimated tax payments to the IRS came from the Trustee's portion of the Settlement Proceeds. That finding was neither clearly erroneous nor based on an erroneous legal conclusion.
Although the motion to compromise controversy and the December 12, 2008 Amended Order (incorporating the consistent terms of the October 20, 2008 order) granting the motion are silent on the issue of taxes, the Debtors did not object to the Trustee's October 21, 2009 Final Report, which unambiguously noted that the $2,200 distribution to the IRS for taxes on the Settlement Proceeds was "estimated." If the Debtors wanted to reserve their right to claim all or a portion of a potential refund of excess taxes, it was incumbent on them to negotiate that at the time they compromised their dispute with the Trustee or to object to the 2009 Final Report; they did neither. The Debtors' acquiescence to the 2009 Final Report is tantamount to an acknowledgment that the funds used to pay the estimated federal taxes constituted the "Trustee's portion of the Settlement Proceeds." Consequently, the Debtors waived their rights in those funds under the plain language of the Court's December 12, 2008 order.
We recognize that the Trustee's motion to compromise controversy and the October 20, 2008 order contain language suggesting that the parties intended to evenly split the Settlement Proceeds, regardless of the amount eventually received in the settlement, and that the parties likely expected that the taxes on the Settlement Proceeds would be extinguished by the Trustee's estimated tax payments. But those facts do not mitigate or supercede the clear language in the bankruptcy
Therefore, for the reasons stated above, we affirm the order of the bankruptcy court overruling Mr. Boyher's objection to the Trustee's Amended Final Report, Proposed Distribution, and Motion for Abandonment.