Strict Construction is Alive and Well in Third Circuit
Please join me in welcoming to the blogosphere, my newest partner, Dan Astin. Dan is a highly acclaimed lawyer who focuses his practice on creditors' rights and related matters. Bankruptcy law is part of "business law" and is of interest to most business litigators and similar readers of this blog.
This is what I hope will be the first of many "guest posts" by Dan. In this post, Dan highlights a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the circuit which includes the District of Delaware.
In the case of In Re American Pad & Paper Co., -- F.3d. --, 2007 WL 624346, (3rd. Cir. 2007), the court applied strict construction principles in connection with the applicable statute for bringing avoidance (or preference) actions under Section 546(a). Read full opinion here. This is the key quote:
The fact that appellant's claims, as the section 702 trustee, were already time-barred at the moment of his election in February 2002 does not make the application of the statute as written absurd. “[W]e do not sit to assess the relative merits of different approaches to various bankruptcy problems. It suffices that the natural reading of the text produces the result we announce. Achieving a better policy outcome-if what [appellant] urges is that-is a task for Congress, not the courts.” Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co., 530 U.S. at 13-14.
