IN THE MATTER OF HIGHLAND CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, L.P. NEXPOINT ADVISORS, L.P., Appellant/Creditor/Party in Interest 11 U.S.C. 1109(B) v. PACHULSKI STANG ZIEHL & JONES, L.L.P., Appellee/Retained Professional; WILMER CUTLER PICKERING HALE AND DORR, L.L.P.; FTI CONSULTING, INCORPORATED; TENEO CAPITAL, L.L.C.; SIDLEY AUSTIN, L.L.P.
No. 22-10575
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
July 19, 2023
HIGGINBOTHAM, SOUTHWICK, and WILLETT, Circuit Judges. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge.
PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:
The bankruptcy court, administering a complex bankruptcy, dismissed NexPoint Advisors, LP’s objection to professional fees paid to myriad organizations. NexPoint appealed to the district court, sitting as an appellate court. The district court dismissed for lack of standing to appeal. NexPoint appeals. We AFFIRM.
I.
Highland Capital Management filed for bankruptcy under
Neither (i) the payment of or the failure to pay, in whole or in part, interim compensation and/or reimbursement of or the failure to reimburse, in whole or in part, expenses under the Interim Compensation Procedures nor (ii) the filing or failure to file an Objection will bind any party in interest or the Court with respect to the final allowance of applications for payment of compensation and reimbursement of expenses of Professionals. All fees and expenses paid to Professionals under the Interim Compensation Procedures are subject to disgorgement until final allowance by the Court.
On the same day, the Delaware bankruptcy court transferred the bankruptcy to the bankruptcy court of the Northern District of Texas.
By February 2021, the Texas bankruptcy court had approved the Debtor’s reorganization plan and granted related relief, providing in part that
NexPoint timely objected, urging “failure to properly serve the Final Applications and provide notice of the applicable objection deadline(s) thereto” as established by the bankruptcy court’s order. NexPoint also requested leave to supplement the record if an extra inspection found additional grounds for opposition. The Debtor’s Professionals and the Committee’s Professionals filed their respective replies.
At the Final Fee Hearing, the bankruptcy court denied NexPoint’s requests for discovery and review. The bankruptcy court first took issue with the timing of NexPoint’s objections and request. Conceding that “no one is bound by an interim fee approval order,” the court expressed its concerns that NexPoint objected “at the end of the case,” observing that “now we need much more time because there’s so much to review [requiring] a fee examiner.” Turning to the merit of the objection, the judge observed:
The fees are high, but they’re not eye-popping. They’re not Purdue Pharma. They’re not Boy Scouts. They’re not PG&E.
You know, for a case where there were well over a billion dollars of claims asserted, if they in the aggregate are approaching $50 million, I’m not terribly surprised, given what I’ve seen.
The bankruptcy judge orally approved Appellees’ fee applications at the hearing and entered the five final orders approving the fee applications days later. NexPoint timely appealed to the district court.
After consolidating the appeals, the district court dismissed NexPoint’s challenge for lack of appellate standing in bankruptcy appeals. First, the district court rejected NexPoint’s challenge to this Court’s “aggrieved person” standard and concluded that NexPoint lacked standing by that standard despite its administrative fee claims and status as a defendant in an adversary proceeding. The district court then rejected NexPoint’s alternative argument that, the “person aggrieved” standard aside, it had standing to appeal the orders under Sections 330 and 1109 of the bankruptcy code and dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. This appeal followed.
II.
NexPoint forwards several arguments in support of its standing to challenge the district court’s orders: (1) that its status as a defendant in a related adversary proceeding confers standing under the “person aggrieved” test; (2) that prudential standing considerations such as the “person aggrieved” standard did not survive Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118 (2014),6 and that it meets traditional Article III standing requirements; (3) that by a prior ruling of this Court, the “person aggrieved” standard is more capacious than its application here and confers NexPoint
A.
“In ruling on a motion to dismiss for want of standing, both the trial and reviewing courts must accept as true all material allegations of the complaint, and must construe the complaint in favor of the complaining party.”8 “Standing is a question of law that we review de novo.”9
“Bankruptcy courts are not authorized by Article III of the Constitution, and as such are not presumptively bound by traditional rules of judicial standing.”10 Rather, standing was governed by statute, which read: “A person aggrieved by an order of a referee may . . . file with the referee a petition for review . . . .”11 Congress expressly removed this provision when it enacted the Bankruptcy Code in 1978.12 Despite its removal, we have affirmed that the “person aggrieved” test continues to govern standing in bankruptcy proceedings.13
Bankruptcy cases often involve numerous parties with conflicting and overlapping interests. Allowing each and every party to appeal each and every order would clog up the system and bog down the courts. Given the specter of such sclerotic litigation, standing to appeal a bankruptcy court order is, of necessity, quite limited.18
NexPoint pointed to two different sources of “aggrievement”: (1) its administrative claim, and (2) its role as a defendant in a pending adversary
The bankruptcy court disallowed NexPoint’s administrative expense claim, denying it recovery from the Debtor’s bankruptcy estate. This alone takes the legs from NexPoint’s argument, for if it is not entitled to administrative expenses the payout of professional expenses to others cannot impact its finances. Accepting this reality, it shifts gears, observing that “[a]lthough [the district court’s] holding[] [is] incorrect, NexPoint’s arguments here will focus principally on the Adversary Proceeding.” Turning then to the adversary proceeding, NexPoint fares no better.
As there is at present no judgment or order or process to require NexPoint to pay any fees as a result of the adversary proceeding, “the speculative prospect of harm is far from a direct, adverse, pecuniary hit,”21 particularly so when such a harm would be felt indirectly via a separate proceeding.22
B.
NexPoint then pivots, urging that the “person aggrieved” standard did not survive the Supreme Court’s Lexmark decision. We disagree. Lexmark addressed standing in false advertising claims under the Lanham Act.26 The Supreme Court reminded that courts may not “limit a cause of action that Congress has created merely because ‘prudence’ dictates.”27 NexPoint runs with this language, arguing that it nullifies the “person aggrieved” test for prudential standing in bankruptcy actions.
We are yet to address directly the “person aggrieved” standing in light of Lexmark. Superior MRI concerned a contractual claim following a Chapter 7 bankruptcy rather than a district court’s appellate review of a bankruptcy court order, and other published precedent has not explicitly addressed this argument.33 As Superior MRI’s reasoning applies with equal force and certitude here, we do so now: Lexmark does not expressly reach prudential concerns in bankruptcy appeals and brought no change relevant here.34
C.
NexPoint also argues that the current law of “person aggrieved” is unsound, pointing to this Court’s 1995 decision in Cajun Electric Power Cooperative v. Central Louisiana Electric Cooperative.35 There, we held: “To have standing to appeal a bankruptcy order, a party must show that it was
“An argument not raised before the district court cannot be asserted for the first time on appeal.”37 This, of course, remains true in bankruptcy appeals, where this Court “[a]ct[s] as a ‘second review court.’”38 NexPoint replies that it lacked an opportunity to raise its Cajun Electric argument below. True, in the Motion to Dismiss stage, Appellees focused on NexPoint’s general unsecured and administrative expenses to argue that NexPoint lacked standing. But in response NexPoint relied on the adversary proceeding to establish that it had standing and made the same argument regarding Lexmark’s effect on the “person aggrieved” as well as its argument
D.
Finally, NexPoint argues that Bankruptcy Code §§ 330 & 1109 confer appellate standing.39 We disagree. Section 1109(b) provides that “[a] party in interest, including . . . a creditor . . . may raise and may appear and be heard on any issue in a case under this chapter.”40 In lay terms, § 1109(b) speaks to one’s standing to appear and be heard before the bankruptcy court, a concept distinct from standing to appeal the merits of a decision. As other courts have recognized, “[b]ecause Section 1109(b) ‘expands the right to be heard [in a bankruptcy proceeding] to a wider class than those who qualify under the “person aggrieved” standard,’ courts considering the issue have concluded that ‘merely being a party in interest is insufficient to confer appellate
Although section 1109 speaks broadly of the right of a party in interest to raise and to appear and be heard on any issue in a chapter 11 case, the section is silent on the subject of a party’s standing to take an appeal from an adverse decision, other than to expressly prohibit the Securities and Exchange Commission from taking an appeal. In general, in order for a person to be a proper party to take an appeal, one must be a “person aggrieved” by the outcome of a particular proceeding. Consistent with the basic purpose of section 1109(b), a party qualifies as a “person aggrieved” if the decision in question adversely affects the party’s pecuniary interest.43
*****
We AFFIRM.
PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM
UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE
