Article by Susan E. Hauser
Beginning with its 1995 decision in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Congress may not use its Article I powers to abrogate a state's Eleventh Amendment immunity against suit. Although none of these decisions involved bankruptcy, five circuit courts of appeal relied on the Seminole Tribe line of cases to hold that states that are creditors possess sovereign immunity in bankruptcy proceedings. Because bankruptcy proceedings are exclusively federal, these decisions had the practical effect of exempting an entire class of creditors from the bankruptcy process.
The Supreme Court first attempted to cure this problem in Hood v. Tennessee Student Assistance Corp. (In re Hood). Hood holds that proceedings involving the bankruptcy discharge are in rem proceedings that do not implicate the Eleventh Amendment because they are not suits against states. A year later, in Central Virginia Community College v. Katz, the Court expanded bankruptcy jurisdiction beyond the narrow confines of Hood, recognizing federal power over an undefined category of proceedings described as ancillary to in rem bankruptcy proceedings. Katz accomplishes this expansion by interpreting the Constitution's Bankruptcy Clause as connoting blanket consent by the states to federal jurisdiction in bankruptcy matters that are either in rem proceedings or ancillary to in rem proceedings.
This Article examines the boundaries of bankruptcy jurisdiction after the decisions in Hood and Katz. After comparing the jurisdictional structure presented in Hood and Katz to the jurisdictional power actually exercised by bankruptcy courts, the Article concludes that the Court uses the term ancillary to in rem in Katz as a proxy for the exercise of compulsory jurisdiction over states. However, the Court makes it clear that this expansion of power is not unlimited. Katz itself limits federal power over states in bankruptcy proceedings by reading the uniformity requirement in the Bankruptcy Clause as implying the states' consent to be treated uniformly with other creditors. In reaching this conclusion, Katz interprets the Bankruptcy Clause and its uniformity requirement as requiring a form of uniformity that is not merely geographic, but also personal and focused on the impact that bankruptcy law will have on debtors and creditors.
About the Author
Susan E. Hauser. Professor, North Carolina Central University School of Law. B.A. 1980, Wake Forest University; J.D. 1984, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Citation
82 Tul. L. Rev. 1181 (2008)