Robert D. Drain
How Judge Drain rules, drawn from 20 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Judge Drain no longer hears cases. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled.
How Judge Drain decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Work that arranged early financing and supported an orderly filing justified a substantial-contribution award, subject to a reasonableness reduction.
“the Committee’s efforts during the same prepetition period to line up debtor in possession financing, which was approved in the early days of the chapter 11 case, and, therefore clearly benefitted the Debtors’ estates and creditors and substantially contributed to the chapter 11 cases”
Procedural preferences
An examiner was not appointed when the proposed valuation offered negligible estate-wide benefit compared with its cost.
“the appointment of an examiner would not be in the estates’ interest in the light of the negligible benefits of the requested valuation balanced against its cost”
Cautions
A late attempt to move a long-pending dispute into the bankruptcy court supported abstention in favor of the court already preparing for trial.
“CPI’s pursuit of the motion in this Court, rather than in the Ohio District Court, many months after the commencement of the Ohio Action and after CPI’s assertion of a counterclaim in the Ohio Action, raises more than a suggestion of forum shopping”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“West Vernon’s claim will not be counted and will be disallowed”
“MH’s motion to dismiss should be granted in full and judgment will be entered dismissing the Trustee’s claims against MH”
“both the Lender’s and the Shareholders’ summary-judgment motions should be denied as set forth herein”
“this Court exercises its discretion under 28 U.S.C. § 1334(c)(1) to abstain with respect to CPI’s motion to enforce the Sale Order”
“the Unofficial Committee’s Motion is granted to the extent set forth herein, and the Committee and its counsel, in the aggregate, are allowed an administrative expense under Bankruptcy Code section 503(b)(4) of $627,829.17”
After trial, the court resolved multiple working-capital, tax-refund, letter-of-credit, and asset-purchase disputes between the buyer and liquidating trust.
After trial, most trustee claims failed; two claims were allowed but fully offset by the defendant's undisputed claim.
“complaint should be granted under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(h)(3)”
“Chase’s motions to dismiss the complaints’ claims for violation of the discharge injunction under section 524(a) of the Bankruptcy Code should be denied”
“the Trustee’s objection to the Debtor’s homestead exemption claim should be granted and the Debtor’s claimed homestead exemption in respect of the Property denied”
After trial, the debtor's discharge was denied and a limited set of intentional fraudulent transfers was avoided and recovered.
“Sanction Motion is granted and a monetary sanction is imposed”
“The Motion to Vacate is denied.”
“Mr. Hancock’s request for turnover of the surplus foreclosure proceeds to the former owner of the Property (whoever that rightfully is) under section 542 of the Bankruptcy Code is denied”
“the motion, insofar as it seeks relief with respect to Delinquent Contributions to the Welfare Plan under 11 U.S.C. § 1114(e) is granted”
“ACE’s request for its costs is denied”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
All five sampled matters were terminated, but their retained docket streams contained no entries.
A historical record
Judge Drain no longer hears cases. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.