Joe Lee
How Judge Lee rules, drawn from 21 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Judge Lee no longer hears cases. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled here.
About Judge Lee
Joe Lee served as a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of Kentucky beginning in 1961. He retired from regular service in fall 1997 and later sat by recall. He died on May 21, 2015.
How Judge Lee decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In In re Megamarket of Lexington, Lee sustained the trustee's abandonment of bank accounts and ordered their funds distributed to the secured creditor. He found it inequitable for the estate to benefit from the creditor's unintended postpetition release of its security interest in that collateral.
“However, to permit the bankruptcy estate and the general creditors to reap benefit from the creditor’s unintended postpetition release of its security interest in this collateral would be inequitable.”
Procedural preferences
In In re Kentucky Processing, Lee held that no quarterly fee was owed to the United States Trustee for quarters without debtor disbursements and said any minimum fee for those quarters required a statutory change.
“If the collection of the minimum fee in Chapter 11 cases for quarters in which there are no distributions is essential to the self-funding of the U.S. Trustee system, the appropriate solution is to ask Congress to authorize collection of such fees by amendment of § 1930(a)(6), not to misinterpret the language of the statute.”
Cautions
In Calumet Farm, Lee declined summary judgment on an ordinary-course defense because applying that exception to the challenged transfers required a fact-specific inquiry.
“Questions concerning application of the ordinary course of business exception to the transactions involved herein are fact-intensive and not capable of resolution by summary judgment.”
In Crocker v. Stiff, Lee rejected the debtor's proposed fixed two-year cutoff for unaccounted transactions in a discharge case.
“Whether an unaccounted transaction is too old to be the subject of a § 727 action is a question of fact, not a question of whether those transactions occurred within an inflexible two-year look-back period, as Debtor urges.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Accordingly, the court finds the parties commencing this case owe no unpaid quarterly fees to the United States Trustee.”
“The court is of the opinion that the motion of the defendants to remand this declaratory judgment action to the state court should be overruled and that the motion of the debtor in possession to assume the leases of the debtor with the defendants should be set for an evidentiary hearing.”
“For the reasons hereinafter stated, the court is of the opinion the involuntary petition under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code for an order of relief against the debtor, and the debtor’s counterclaim against Columbia Gas of Kentucky, Inc., should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.”
The opinion determined partnership-tax liability but did not contain a sufficiently explicit disposition of the competing summary-judgment motions.
“In conformity with this opinion, an order shall be entered avoiding the lien of Credi-thrift of America on the household furnishings of the debtor as a lien that impairs the exemption of the debtor in such property.”
“The court is of the opinion the objections to the debtor’s claim of an exemption in all her interest in the real property in question should be overruled.”
“Based on its decision that the debtor received the goods in question on December 7, 1982 for the purposes of 11 U.S.C. § 546(c) and KRS 355.2-702, the court finds that Aventura made a timely demand for reclamation of certain sportswear garments from the debtor, Maloney Enterprises, Inc.”
“The motion of the trustee for summary judgment against the United States of America, Internal Revenue Service, is sustained.”
“The motion of the United States of America, Internal Revenue Service, for summary judgment against the trustee is overruled.”
The opinion fixed lien priority and distributed sale proceeds, but the available text did not state the moving plaintiff's motion outcome clearly enough to classify.
“The Debtor’s motion for summary judgment on the U.S. Trustee’s § 727(a)(3) claim is denied. The Debtor’s motion for summary judgment on the U.S. Trustee’s § 727(a)(5) claim is denied as well.”
“The Court therefore sets aside its judgment on Counts IX through XII, and denies the motion to set aside its judgment as to Counts I through VIII and Count XIV.”
“With the foregoing in mind it seems clear that the objection of the United States Trustee to the final report of the debtor in possession in this case is not well taken.”
A historical record
Judge Lee no longer hears cases. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled here. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.