You Have the Right to the Silent Treatment

SHERRY F. COLB

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb proposes the psychological effects of the “silent treatment” as a possible reason that arrested individuals who understand their Miranda rights nevertheless confess to the police. Rather than seeking to dispute or displace other explanations of the phenomenon, Colb suggests that when police leave a suspect alone in his cell, he may experience their exit as the silent treatment and confess as an attempt to end it.

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Ritzen Group, Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC

Docket: 18-938

Opinion Date: January 14, 2020

Judge: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Areas of Law: Bankruptcy, Civil Procedure

Ritzen sued Jackson in Tennessee state court for breach of contract. Jackson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Under 11 U.S.C. 362(a), filing a bankruptcy petition automatically “operates as a stay” of creditors’ debt-collection efforts outside the bankruptcy case. The Bankruptcy Court denied Ritzen’s motion for relief from the automatic stay. Ritzen did not appeal but filed a proof of claim, which was disallowed. Ritzen then challenged the denial of relief from the automatic stay. The district court rejected Ritzen’s appeal as untimely under 28 U.S.C. 158(c)(2) and Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 8002(a), which require appeals from a bankruptcy court order to be filed “within 14 days after entry of [that] order.” The Sixth Circuit and a unanimous Supreme Court affirmed. A bankruptcy court’s order unreservedly denying relief from the automatic stay constitutes a final, immediately appealable order under section 158(a). Adjudication of a creditor’s motion for relief from the stay is a discrete “proceeding” that disposes of a procedural unit anterior to, and separate from, claim-resolution proceedings. The order can have large practical consequences, including whether a creditor can isolate its claim from those of other creditors and proceed outside bankruptcy. Rather than disrupting the efficiency of the bankruptcy process, an immediate appeal may permit creditors to establish their rights expeditiously outside the bankruptcy process, affecting the relief awarded later in the bankruptcy case.

Retirement Plans Committee of IBM v. Jander

Docket: 18-1165

Opinion Date: January 14, 2020

Judge: Per Curiam

Areas of Law: ERISA, Securities Law

In 2014, the Supreme Court held that a claim for breach of the duty of prudence imposed on plan fiduciaries by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) on the basis of inside information, must plausibly allege an alternative action that would have been consistent with securities laws and that a prudent fiduciary would not have viewed as more likely to harm the fund than to help it. The ERISA duty of prudence does not require a fiduciary to break the law and cannot require the fiduciary of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) “to perform an action—such as divesting the fund’s holdings of the employer’s stock on the basis of inside information—that would violate the securities laws.” In 2018, the Second Circuit reinstated a claim for breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA brought by participants in IBM’s 401(k) plan who suffered losses from their investment in IBM stock. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded, characterizing the question as what it takes to plausibly allege an alternative action “that a prudent fiduciary in the same circumstances would not have viewed as more likely to harm the fund than to help it” and whether that pleading standard can be satisfied by generalized allegations that the harm of an inevitable disclosure of an alleged fraud generally increases over time.” The Court concluded that the Second Circuit did not address those questions and noted that the views of the Securities and Exchange Commission might “well be relevant” to discerning the content of ERISA’s duty of prudence in this context.