Lee Wendell Loder v. Icemakers Inc.

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 21-13082
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
In Re: Lee Wendell Loder,
Adrianne Lawnyette Ragland Loder,
Debtors.
___________________________________________________
LEE WENDELL LODER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
ICEMAKERS INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
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2 Opinion of the Court 21-13082
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 2:20-cv-01372-LSC
____________________
Before J ORDAN, B RANCH, and G RANT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Lee Loder challenges the bankruptcy court’s refusal to stop
Icemakers, Inc. from enforcing a state-court judgment against him.
We affirm the bankruptcy court’s denial of his motions.
I.
This appeal stems from a bitter seventeen-year dispute
between Loder and Icemakers over a debt of less than $6,000.1 In
early 2007, Loder and Icemakers entered into a consent judgment
regarding this debt in Alabama state court. Shortly thereafter,
Loder and his wife filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and Icemakers
filed a complaint for nondischargability. Loder and Icemakers
settled in October 2007, leading to a federal consent judgment that
declared the debt nondischargeable, but that did not otherwise
reference the state-court proceedings or the appropriate interest
rate for the debt.
1 We assume the parties’ familiarity with this litigation’s facts and procedural
history and only discuss those elements necessary to resolving this appeal.
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21-13082 Opinion of the Court 3
Nearly ten years later—after various failed efforts to collect
the debt—Icemakers filed a motion to revive the state-court
judgment in 2017. Loder then filed a “Motion for Contempt &
Sanctions for Violation of the Bankruptcy Discharge” and a
“Motion for Summary Judgment on the Issue of Liability for
Violation of the Discharge Injunction” before the bankruptcy
court. He argued that Icemakers’ actions in state court violated the
2007 federal consent judgment because the bankruptcy consent
order created a “new, replacement judgment” that displaced the
state-court judgment, making Icemakers’ efforts to revive the state-
court judgment a sanctionable defiance of the bankruptcy court.
Icemakers filed its own motion for summary judgment. The
bankruptcy court granted Icemakers’ motion and denied Loder’s.
Loder appealed, and the district court affirmed, holding that “the
only effect of the Bankruptcy Court judgment was to render the
debt Loder owed Icemakers nondischargeable. It did not replace
the state court judgment with a new money judgment.”
Loder v.
Icemakers, Inc., No. 2:18-cv-00812-LSC, 2019 WL 10784382, at *4
(N.D. Ala. Feb. 27, 2019). Loder then appealed to this Court, which
also affirmed.
In re Loder, 796 Fed.Appx 698 (11th Cir. 2020)
(unpublished).
On remand, Loder filed a two-page “Motion to Enforce
Settlement Agreement & for Temporary Restraining Order,”
arguing—as he had in his prior motion—that the federal consent
judgment displaced the state-court judgment against him, and that
Icemakers’ efforts to enforce the state-court judgment were thus
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4 Opinion of the Court 21-13082
improper. On August 28, 2020, the bankruptcy court denied
Loder’s motion. It noted that Icemakers had tried to collect the
state-court judgment for nearly 13 years, that the 2007 federal
consent judgment did not purport to replace the state-court
judgment, and that the 2007 federal consent judgment did not
address the rate of interest to be applied to the debt. And given
Loder’s earlier appeals, it held that “principles of
res judicata and
collateral estoppel apply here.” Within a week of the bankruptcy
court’s August 28 order, Loder twice moved for reconsideration,
and the bankruptcy court denied both motions.
Loder appealed these orders to the district court, and
Icemakers moved to dismiss the appeal as frivolous. The district
court affirmed the bankruptcy court and partially granted
Icemakers’ motion. Loder appealed both the district court’s
determination that his appeal was frivolous and the district court’s
order affirming the bankruptcy court, after which Icemakers
moved to dismiss
this appeal as frivolous too. Loder then moved
to dismiss his own appeal for lack of jurisdiction, and this Court
partially granted that motion—holding that we lacked jurisdiction
to review the district court’s finding that the appeal was frivolous,
but that we had jurisdiction to review the district court’s order
affirming the bankruptcy court. We now resolve what remains of
this appeal.
II.
Loder affirmatively limits his appeal of the bankruptcy
court’s August 28 order denying his motion to enforce the
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21-13082 Opinion of the Court 5
settlement agreement (and his appeal of the denials of his motions
to reconsider)—he only challenges “the bankruptcy court’s factual
findings that contradicted the debtor’s assertion that the parties
intended to limit their options contractually in the bankruptcy
settlement agreement.” He thus waives any challenge to the
bankruptcy court’s holding that his motion was procedurally
barred based on its
old factual findings, instead only challenging an
arguably
new factual finding that the parties did not mutually
intend that the federal consent agreement would replace the state-
court judgment against Loder.
We review the factual findings of a bankruptcy court for
clear error.
In re Optical Techs., Inc., 425 F.3d 1294, 1300 (11th Cir.
2005). “We will not find clear error unless our review of the record
leaves us with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has
been committed.”
Jackson Nat’l Life Ins. Co. v. Crum, 25 F.4th
854, 859 (11th Cir. 2022) (quotation omitted).
Assuming that Loder’s challenge is procedurally
appropriate, he has not shown that the bankruptcy court’s factual
findings were clear error.2 His briefing is conclusory; he gives no
evidence from the record that the parties actually
did intend to
have the 2007 federal consent judgment replace the state-court
2 The parties do not fully brief the procedural issues raised by a limited appeal
of new factual findings in an order that otherwise holds that a motion is
procedurally barred. Because Loder’s arguments fail even if this appeal is
procedurally proper, we decline to address those issues.
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6 Opinion of the Court 21-13082
judgment. As for the bankruptcy court’s findings on their own
terms, that court reasonably observed that Icemakers’ actions are
inconsistent with an agreement to exclusively resolve matters
before the bankruptcy court, and it correctly noted the limited
terms of the 2007 federal consent judgment. Our review of the
record does not leave us with a definite and firm conviction that a
mistake has been made. Given that Loder challenges no other
elements of the bankruptcy court’s orders, this lack of clear error
resolves his appeal.
III.
That leaves Icemakers’ motion to dismiss this appeal as
frivolous. We will only dismiss appeals as frivolous if they are
“utterly devoid of merit.”
Parker v. Am. Traffic Sols., Inc., 835 F.3d
1363, 1371 (11th Cir. 2016) (quotation omitted). Because Loder
only sought a limited review of factual findings by the bankruptcy
court that were at least arguably new, we cannot call his appeal
utterly devoid of merit. Moreover, although this Court found that
we lacked jurisdiction over Loder’s original challenge to the district
court’s dismissal of that appeal as frivolous, Loder’s apparent
original belief that this Court had jurisdiction over that order also
was not utterly devoid of merit. We thus deny Icemakers’ motion.
* * *
We AFFIRM the district court’s order affirming the
bankruptcy court’s denial of Loder’s motions and DENY
Icemakers’ motion to dismiss this appeal as frivolous.
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