This appeal presents a mare’s nest of exotic legal problems. At the outset, it requires us to resolve a novel question of bankruptcy jurisdiction. After deciding that question, we must then determine whether, under Massachusetts law, a nonprofit organization that has ceased operations may nonetheless receive a charitable bequest. Because the charitable organization was still functioning as such at the time its entitlement to the bequest vested, we conclude that the bequest may be paid.
I. BACKGROUND
Elizabeth Krauss executed her last will and testament in 1975. That instrument bequeathed the residue of her estate in equal shares to the New England Sanitarium and Hospital of Stoneham, Massachusetts (New England Sanitarium), First Lutheran Church of Boston (First Lutheran), and First Church of Christ, Scientist (the Mother Church). It specified that the bequest to the New England Sanitarium was “to be used to provide a bed for indigent patients.”
In 1988, a state probate court adjudged Ms. Krauss incompetent and placed her under guardianship. Eight years later, the court appointed successor guardians in the persons of Gary Douglas Rose (Ms. Krauss’s grand-nephew) and Hanson S. Reynolds (an attorney). The new guardians found Ms. Krauss’s financial affairs in disarray. They concluded that it would be best to sell her realty, thus making her estate more liquid and raising funds that could be used to settle her debts and defray the costs of her nursing care.
To minimize potential tax liabilities, the guardians proposed to transfer the real estate to certain inter vivos charitable trusts as a precursor to any sale. These transfers would render the testamentary bequests nugatory but, to effectuate Ms. Krauss’s original intent, the guardians drew the trust indentures to provide that, upon Ms. Krauss’s death, the remaining corpus would be divided in equal portions among the three residuary beneficiaries named in the will. By then, the New England Sanitarium had changed its name to Boston Regional Medical Center (BRMC), and the indentures of trust named BRMC, First Lutheran, and the Mother Church as residuary beneficiaries. This stipulation did not include the preexisting limitation on the gift to BRMC (that the funds “be used to provide a bed for indigent patients”). According to Reynolds, the guardians deliberately eliminated the restriction because they believed that it was ambiguous and, as such, might cause a failure of the bequest.
On October 10, 1997, the probate court confirmed the guardians’ plan for transferring and then selling Ms. Krauss’s assets. The real estate was transferred and sold, and the trusts were funded. The guardians were named as co-trustees.
On March 1, 1998, Ms. Krauss died at the age of 105. The trustees neither initiated any contact with the named beneficiaries at that time nor made any immediate distribution of the corpus. The record *104 does not indicate that BRMC even knew of Ms. Krauss’s death, let alone of the windfall that her demise betokened.
Approximately eleven months later, BRMC closed its doors, halted hospital operations, and filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. At the time, it was still not aware that it was a beneficiary of the Krauss trusts. Thus, BRMC did not list any expected distribution from the trusts among the assets of the bankruptcy estate.
On January 18, 2000, the bankruptcy court confirmed BRMC’s plan of reorganization (the Plan). The Plan was strictly a liquidating plan. Under it, all of BRMC’s assets were vested in a reorganized BRMC, which we shall call liquidating BRMC or L-BRMC. 1 L-BRMC’s sole purpose is to liquidate the marshaled assets and distribute the net proceeds to BRMC’s creditors in accordance with the provisions of the Plan.
In May of 2000, the nature and extent of Ms. Krauss’s philanthropy became known to her intended beneficiaries. Citing BRMC’s bankruptcy, First Lutheran and the Mother Church filed a complaint against the trustees and L-BRMC in the probate court seeking to prohibit any distribution from the trust corpus to the bankrupt hospital. L-BRMC objected on several grounds, asserting in the first instance that the injunctive provisions of the Plan barred the maintenance of the suit. 2 The churches agreed to drop L-BRMC from the state court proceeding and filed a motion in the bankruptcy court for relief from the injunction so that the probate court proceeding could go forward. The bankruptcy court denied that motion on July 12, 2000.
Shortly thereafter, L-BRMC initiated an adversary proceeding in the bankruptcy court to compel the trustees to turn over the hospital’s share of the trust assets. The churches intervened and counterclaimed for reformation of the indentures of trust, seeking to reimpose the “bed” limitation that had been contained in Ms. Krauss’s will. First Lutheran simultaneously moved to dismiss the turnover complaint and the Mother Church filed a motion entreating the bankruptcy court to abstain. The bankruptcy court denied both of these motions.
In re Boston Reg’l Med. Ctr.,
On February 7, 2003, the bankruptcy court held a hearing on the merits. It thereafter concluded that because Ms. Krauss died before BRMC ceased to function as a hospital and because BRMC incurred its debts in furtherance of its charitable mission, there was no obstacle to paying out a one-third share of the trust
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residue.
In re Boston Reg’l Med. Ctr.,
The churches filed objections to the bankruptcy court’s recommended decision.
See
28 U.S.C. § 157(c)(1) (2000); Fed. R. Bankr.P. 9033(b). They also moved in the district court for (i) dismissal for want of subject matter jurisdiction, (ii) abstention, or (iii) certification of the state law questions to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC). The district court denied the motions, conducted a de novo review of the record, adopted the bankruptcy court’s proposed findings and conclusions with minor modifications, and entered judgment accordingly.
In re Boston Reg’l Med. Ctr.,
No. Civ. A. 03-12215,
II. JURISDICTION
We start with the jurisdictional question. The churches strive to persuade us that there is no “related to” jurisdiction because this litigation arose after the bankruptcy court confirmed the Plan. We are not convinced.
Bankruptcy jurisdiction is governed principally by statute. The general grant of bankruptcy jurisdiction is contained in 28 U.S.C. § 1334. That provision vests original jurisdiction in the district courts over “all civil proceedings arising under title 11, or arising in or related to cases under title 11.” Id. § 1334(b). In what is a typical arrangement, the District of Massachusetts, by standing order, has delegated to the bankruptcy court all cases in which jurisdiction is premised on section 1334, see D. Mass. R. 201, subject to review by the district court (or, alternatively, by the bankruptcy appellate panel) in accordance with 28 U.S.C. §§ 157, 158.
The statutory grant of “related to” jurisdiction is quite broad. Congress deliberately allowed the cession of wide-ranging jurisdiction to the bankruptcy courts to enable them to deal efficiently and effectively with the entire universe of matters connected with bankruptcy estates.
See Pacor, Inc. v. Higgins,
In this instance, the bankruptcy court found the adversary proceeding to be “related to [a] case[ ] under title 11,” as that phrase is used in section 1334(b). At first blush, this seems to be a garden-variety application of the general rule. Whether or not BRMC prevails will directly affect the amount of the liquidating dividend paid to creditors. There is, therefore, a fairly close connection between the adversary proceeding and the administration of the bankruptcy estate. That seemingly would suffice to bring this case within the bankruptcy court’s related to jurisdiction.
See In re Toledo,
The churches urge us not to apply the general rule here. In their view, the dis *106 tinguishing feature is that L-BRMC commenced this proceeding after the bankruptcy court confirmed the Plan. This argument presupposes that the scope of the bankruptcy court’s related to jurisdiction narrows dramatically once a plan of reorganization has been confirmed and that, thereafter, related to jurisdiction only includes those matters that have a particularly close nexus to the confirmed plan — a nexus that the churches assert is absent in this case.
On its face, section 1334 does not distinguish between pre-confirmation and post-confirmation jurisdiction. Nonetheless, courts sometimes have found a need to curtail the reach of related to jurisdiction in the post-confirmation context so that bankruptcy court jurisdiction does not continue indefinitely.
See, e.g., In re Pegasus Gold Corp.,
The rationale behind this line of decisions starts with the premise that a reorganized debtor is emancipated by the confirmation of a reorganization plan. It emerges from bankruptcy and enters the marketplace in its reincarnated form. From that point forward, it is just like any other corporation; “it must protect its interests in the way provided by the applicable non-bankruptcy law,” without any special swaddling.
Pettibone Corp. v. Easley,
The solution, however, is not to discard the baby with the bath water. While courts have interpreted the term “related to” more grudgingly in some post-confirmation settings, context is important. Those narrowing interpretations have been invoked only with respect to actions involving reorganized debtors that have reentered the marketplace. No case has suggested that courts should abandon the general rule in all post-confirmation cases.
Here, the Plan calls for the liquidation of BRMC, not its continuation as a going concern. The most salient difference between the usual Chapter 11 reorganization and a liquidating plan is that, in the latter instance, the reorganized debtor’s sole purpose is to wind up its affairs, convert its assets to cash, and pay creditors a pro rata dividend. By definition, it has no authority to reenter the marketplace. That fact undercuts the primary purposes for parsimoniously policing the perimeter of post-confirmation jurisdiction: the specter of endless bankruptcy jurisdiction and a kindred concern about unfairly advantaging reorganized debtors. Accordingly, there is much less reason to depart from the general rule for related to jurisdiction where a claim involves a liquidating plan of reorganization.
There is another, perhaps more important, reason for distinguishing between liquidating plans and true reorganization plans. Courts that have limited the scope of post-confirmation jurisdiction have based their holdings on the conclusion that, once confirmation has occurred, fewer proceedings are actually related to the underlying bankruptcy case.
See, e.g., Resorts Int’l,
This justification is absent in the case of a liquidating plan. Typically, a reorganized debtor is attempting to make a go of its business. Thus, its actions (including any involvement in litigation) redound primarily to that end and only affect the underlying bankruptcy proceeding in a tangential or derivative way.
See Pettibone,
This case is a paradigmatic example: L-BRMC’s success or lack of success in securing a share of the trust corpus will directly impact the amount of the liquidating dividend eventually paid to BRMC’s creditors. That is a matter intimately connected with the efficacy of the bankruptcy proceeding. 3
We add, moreover, that in the case of a liquidating plan of reorganization, there exists a substantial policy interest in favor of adhering to the general rule governing related to jurisdiction: the strong federal policy in favor of the expeditious liquidation of debtor corporations and the prompt distribution of available assets to creditors.
See In re Holiday Mart, Inc.,
The existence vel non of related to jurisdiction must be determined case-by-case.
See Pegasus Gold,
Insofar as we can tell, no court has yet addressed the scope of post-confirmation related to jurisdiction in a case involving a liquidating plan of reorganization. For the reasons alluded to above, we hold that when a debtor (or a trustee acting to the debtor’s behoof) commences litigation designed to marshal the debtor’s assets for the benefit of its creditors pursuant to a liquidating plan of reorganization, the compass of related to jurisdiction persists undiminished after plan confirmation. Based on this holding, we affirm the bankruptcy court’s exercise of subject matter jurisdiction.
III. THE MERITS
We turn now to the merits. In this court, the churches have abandoned their counterclaim for reformation of the trust
*108
indentures.
See United States v. Zannino,
Like the district court, we review de novo the bankruptcy court’s conclusions of law.
In re Mailman Steam Carpet Cleaning Corp.,
Massachusetts law on certain issues central to this appeal is fuliginous. We are therefore required to make an informed prophecy as to how the SJC would rule if confronted with the same questions.
Blinzler v. Marriott Int’l, Inc.,
We begin with what can be gleaned from the Massachusetts cases. In construing a will or other testamentary instrument, the testator’s intent governs.
Clymer v. Mayo,
*109
In Massachusetts, an organization that is the beneficiary of a charitable bequest is not disqualified from receiving the bequest merely because it has merged with another charity or has ceased actively to provide charitable services.
See Old Colony Trust Co. v. Winchester Home for Aged Women,
This distinction seems to have driven the SJC’s decision in
Sleeper v. Camp Menotomy,
Massachusetts law thus appears to require that a donee of a charitable bequest be able and willing, at a bare minimum, to direct the funds received to charitable purposes of the same general type and kind that it historically had performed. Failing that, the courts will appoint a trustee to effectuate the testator’s charitable intent.
See Hubbard v. Worcester Art Museum,
We conclude, therefore, that the Massachusetts cases point strongly to a rule that an organization cannot receive a charitable bequest unless it is both capable of using that bequest for the intended purpose and willing to do so. Against this backdrop, we must decide whether the bequest to BRMC was intended for a charitable purpose and, if so, whether BRMC had the capacity to carry out that purpose at the critical time.
Under- Massachusetts law, a gift to a charitable organization is ordinarily construed as a gift for a charitable purpose.
See Wellesley Coll. v. Att’y Gen.,
Viewed in this light, the question reduces to whether BRMC, in its new incarnation as a corporation whose sole purpose is to marshal its assets, liquidate them, and distribute the proceeds to creditors, is eligible to receive a charitable bequest. On this issue, the Massachusetts cases are silent and the authorities elsewhere are divided.
Compare, e.g., In re Will of Kraetzer,
We navigate through these uncharted waters by following a pole star of Massachusetts law: the principle that, in construing testamentary instruments, courts, whenever possible, should give full effect to the testator’s intent.
See Clymer,
Normally, a testator who leaves a charitable bequest acts with a prospective intention.
See Will of Kraetzer,
The bankruptcy court thought that since BRMC incurred its debts in the furtherance of its charitable mission, the payment of those debts could be deemed charitable in nature.
BRMC II,
We are also unpersuaded that holding a bankrupt hospital incapable of *111 taking a charitable bequest will have the dire consequences predicted by the appel-lees. While a rule that charitable bequests could not be used to pay debts might have a crippling effect on a charity’s ability to obtain credit and, hence, on its ability to function, our holding is not nearly so broad. We decide only that, absent a contrary provision in the will or indenture of trust, a charitable organization that has ceased to perform any charitable work and that is incapable of redirecting new funds for charitable purposes is ineligible to receive a charitable bequest or gift. That rule will have the effect, in a few cases, of blocking a charity’s creditors from access to a new source of funds — but that is a small price to pay for honoring the testator’s intent. 7
This decision does not end our odyssey. We still must consider the significance (if any) of the time lapse between the testator’s death and the ensuing bankruptcy. When Ms. Rrauss died, BRMC was running a fully functioning hospital and was actively engaged in performing its charitable mission. By any standard, it was then able to receive the bequest. The question is whether that datum makes a dispositive difference.
In the churches’ view, this accident of timing is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that BRMC is bankrupt now and no money it receives will be used for charitable purposes on a going-forward basis. BRMC has a different viewpoint; it asseverates that its rights to the bequest vested as of the date of Ms. Krauss’s demise; that it was then eligible to receive the funds; and that subsequent events cannot defease that entitlement. Neither of these positions is foolproof.
On the one hand, the churches’ proposed rule that a beneficiary’s status at the time of distribution is the relevant benchmark seems as shaky as a shack built upon shifting sands. The Massachusetts cases offer no support for such a hard-and-fast rule; what little authority we have found points in the opposite direction.
See, e.g., Hubbard,
The churches’ suggested rule also raises the boggart of unnecessary litigation aimed at influencing the timing of distributions. We think that the Massachusetts cases, to the extent they shed any light on this issue, exhibit a preference for a rule that is not contingent on the whims of third parties.
See Sleeper,
On the other hand, BRMC’s position is also open to question. While Massachusetts law is clear that the bequest vested at Ms. Krauss’s death,
see Cook v. Hayward,
One thing is certain: vesting notwithstanding, the bequest was not payable immediately upon Ms. Krauss’s death. An unbroken skein of Massachusetts cases, dating back to the early nineteenth century, recognizes that time is needed for an estate to gather the testator’s assets and settle any debts.
See, e.g., Andrews v. Hunneman,
As a result, unless a will specifies some later date — and Ms. Krauss’s will did not — Massachusetts courts hold that bequests are deemed payable one year after the death of the testator.
See Porter v. Ketchum,
In sum, the bequest to BRMC vested upon Ms. Krauss’s death on March 1, 1998 (when BRMC was operating a hospital). However, BRMC had no right to demand payment of the bequest until March 1, 1999 (by which time it had entered bankruptcy and halted hospital operations). The crucial question, then, is which of these dates controls in determining BRMC’s eligibility to receive the bequest.
Although the question is close, we conclude that the SJC would choose the date of vesting as the vantage point from which to determine a charitable organization’s eligibility to receive a bequest. We reach this conclusion partially by analogy to the case of natural persons. The SJC has held that when a will contains a bequest that is contingent on the donee surviving the testator and the donee does survive but dies before distribution of the bequest, the donee’s heirs (rather than the testator’s heirs) are entitled to receive the bequest.
Childs v. Bussell,
We also give weight to the fact that a “date of vesting” rule is an easier one to administer. Although BRMC had no absolute right to receive its share of the trusts until a year after Ms. Krauss’s death, the trustees had the authority to make such a distribution at an earlier date. Had they done so, we do not think anyone would suggest with a straight face that BRMC should be required to refund the bequest because it ceased operations before a full year had passed. Thus, measuring the organization’s eligibility to receive the bequest as of the date when distribution could be mandated would reintroduce the prospect of manipulation on the part of the fiduciary and, thus, would wind up at cross purposes with the Massachusetts policy favoring mechanical rules in the distribution of estates. 9
That ends this aspect of the matter. We conclude that the SJC would find it preferable to measure eligibility from the time of death. Thus, BRMC’s right to the bequest was complete upon Ms. Krauss’s death. As BRMC was a fully functioning hospital at that time, it was eligible to receive the bequest. The fact that its continued existence as a hospital was short-lived did not alter that reality. Accordingly, as between these claimants, L-BRMC is entitled to the disputed funds.
IV. RELIEF FROM THE INJUNCTION
One loose end remains. As a fallback position, the churches contend that even if we find L-BRMC eligible to receive the bequest-as we have — we nonetheless should reverse the lower courts’ refusal to grant relief from the Plan’s injunctive provisions, quoted supra note 2, so that the churches can initiate a proceeding in the Massachusetts probate court to conform the trusts to the will and reintroduce the “bed for indigent patients” limitation. BRMC argues that this is a non-issue because the earlier probate orders constitute a bar to further proceedings on res judica-ta grounds.
We need not reach the res judicata issue (and, consequently, do not attempt to resolve it). While the record does not reveal the bankruptcy court’s reasons for denying relief from the injunction, the' district court’s opinion affords some guidance. In upholding the bankruptcy court’s refusal to relax the injunction, that court cited the substantial delay in the liquidation of BRMC that this litigation already had caused and concluded that, in all events, any proceeding brought by the churches in the probate court likely would be a waste of time.
BRMC III,
Although the matter is far from clear, we assume, for argument’s sake, that the probate court retains the authority, even at this late date, to modify its decree confirming Ms. Krauss’s estate plan.
Cf. O’Brien v. Dwight,
We review a bankruptcy court’s decision not to exempt a particular claim from the sweep of an injunction or stay prohibiting the maintenance of non-bankruptcy litigation for abuse of discretion.
In re C & S Grain Co.,
The bottom line, then, is that the churches’ anticipated probate claim is tenuous at best. That fact, coupled with the district court’s accurate observation that the battle for the bequest already has caused protracted delay in winding up the bankruptcy case, convinces us that the refusal to lift the injunction was comfortably within the encincture of the lower courts’ discretion.
V. CONCLUSION
We need go no further. In life, timing often is important. So it is here: on the date of the testator’s death, BRMC was eligible to receive the charitable bequest because it was then operating a nonprofit hospital. Our conclusion that the date of death (and, hence, the date of vesting) controls may in some sense seem arbitrary (after all, a few months either way would have made a dispositive difference). But there are no perfect solutions to imbricat-ed problems of this sort. Thus, we base our conclusion not on its inevitability, but, rather, on our belief that the SJC, if squarely confronted with this conundrum, would hold that the relevant date for determining the capacity of a beneficiary to take a charitable bequest is the vesting date, regardless of whether the distribution is made on that date or at some later time. In our view, this result represents a *115 reasonable accommodation of competing centrifugal and centripetal forces, most particularly, Massachusetts’s policy favoring the preservation of charitable gifts for charitable purposes and Massachusetts’s expressed preference for mechanical rules of descent and distribution in matters of testamentary distribution.
Affirmed.
Notes
. BRMC and L-BRMC are not distinct legal entities. Rather, L-BRMC is tire continuation of BRMC as reorganized. We distinguish between them solely for purposes of clarity.
. The Plan provides in pertinent part:
[T]he confirmation of the Plan shall act to permanently enjoin ... all persons ... (a) from commencing or continuing in any manner any action or other proceeding of any kind with respect to any such claim or interest against the Debtor and/or reorganized BRMC; ... (c) from creating, perfecting or enforcing any encumbrance of any kind against reorganized BRMC, or against the property of the reorganized BRMC with respect to any such claim or interest; .... (excess capitalization omitted).
. Although there is authority for the proposition that the prospect of increasing the funds available to creditors, without more, is insufficient to establish related to jurisdiction in a post-confirmation case,
see, e.g., Craig’s Stores,
. L-BRMC asserts rights both as a legatee under Ms. Krauss's will and as a beneficiary under the inter vivos trusts established on her behalf. Depending on which instrument is under consideration, Ms. Krauss technically may be a testator or a settlor and her largesse technically may be described either as a bequest or as a distribution. Since the parties' rights are the same in either event, we refer throughout to Ms. Krauss as the testator and to the gift as a bequest.
. Here, the authorities are divided and are thus of little help.
. Of course, a testator might leave a bequest for the specific purpose of enabling a charitable organization, whether or not solvent, to pay its debts. That sort of bequest is beyond the scope of this opinion.
. Our emphasis on the testator’s intent is buttressed by our knowledge that, under Massachusetts law, a testator could expressly include a provision in her will precluding a bankrupt charity from taking thereunder. See
Springfield. Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Friele,
. In the case of charities, a named beneficiary may become unable to carry out the charitable purpose of the bequest after the death of the testator but before it is eligible to receive the bequest under the will. In that scenario, the mere fact that the bequest vested might not be enough to entitle the beneficiary to payment.
Cf. Stratton,
. Of course, the “date of vesting” rule that we endorse today is a default rule. Within wide limits, a testator retains the ability to specify the terms on which a beneficiary is eligible to receive a bequest and, thus, to modify the "date of vesting” rule as he or she sees fit.
See Springfield Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Friele,