A Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (abbreviated BAP) is authorized b
28 U.S.C. § 158(b)
to hear, with the consent of all parties,

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

s from the decisions of the

United States bankruptcy court United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. The current system of bankruptcy courts was created by the United States Congress in 1978, effective April 1, 1984. United States bankruptcy c ...

s in their district that otherwise would be heard by district courts, but only in those districts in which the district judges authorize appeals to BAPs. BAPs typically sit as three-judge panels composed of bankruptcy

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

s appointed from the circuit's districts, with the restriction that no judge may participate in an appeal arising from that judge's own district. Not all of the federal judicial circuits have convened a BAP. , only the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

, Sixth, Eighth,

Ninth In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second. Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...

, and Tenth Circuits had convened these panels.

History

The

Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 (, , November 6, 1978) is a United States Act of Congress regulating bankruptcy. The current Bankruptcy Code was enacted in 1978 by § 101 of the Act which generally became effective on October 1, 1979. The curre ...

permitted federal judicial circuits to establish Bankruptcy Appellate Panels to hear appeals from the bankruptcy courts. Those circuits which chose not to establish panels would have bankruptcy appeals heard by the

United States district courts The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

.History of the BAP
The first circuits to establish Bankruptcy Appellate Panels were the Ninth Circuit (in 1979) and the First Circuit (in 1980). The aftermath of the landmark ''

Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. ''Northern Pipeline Construction Company v. Marathon Pipe Line Company'', 458 U.S. 50 (1982), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that Article III jurisdiction could not be conferred on non-Article III courts (i.e. cour ...

'' 458 U.S. 50 (1982). case in 1982 had different effects on the two circuits. Even though the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

did not directly address the constitutionality of the panels in that decision, the First Circuit held that the emergency rules adopted after the decision was rendered pre-empted the use of their BAP, and subsequently disbanded it. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, holding that because the BAP was supervised by the Court of Appeals, and because the BAP's decisions could be appealed to the Court of Appeals, it was constitutional and could therefore continue. In 1994,

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

enacted the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994, which included an amendment of (the

statute A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...

governing appeals in bankruptcy cases) to require all circuits to establish a BAP unless the judicial council of a circuit found that (1) there were insufficient judicial resources in the circuit to do so, or (2) the establishment of a BAP would result in undue delay or increased cost to parties in bankruptcy cases. In 1996, the First Circuit reestablished its BAP, and four new panels were created in the Second, Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits. The Seventh Circuit deferred making a decision, and the remaining five circuits declined to create a BAP. The Second Circuit BAP ceased operations on July 1, 2000.

Procedures

The BAP in each judicial circuit has its own local rules of practice, in addition to the

Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (abbreviated Fed. R. Bankr. P. or FRBP) are a set of rules promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States under the Rules Enabling Act, directing procedures in the United States bankruptcy courts. ...

and

Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure (officially abbreviated Fed. R. App. P.; colloquially FRAP) are a set of rules, promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States on recommendation of an advisory committee, to govern procedures in cases ...

. Parties to the bankruptcy case retain the right to have their appeal heard by a district court instead of a BAP by filing an ''election'' to transfer the case. Judges on a BAP are generally barred from hearing a case from their own bankruptcy district. Appeals from the BAP itself are directed to the

court of appeals A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...

for that circuit.

References

External links

Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the First CircuitBankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Ninth CircuitBankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Tenth Circuit
{{Authority control United States courts of appeals United States bankruptcy law