United States v. Noland, 517 U.S. 535 (1996)

United States v. Noland

No. 95-323

Argued March 25, 1996
Decided May 13, 1996
517 U.S. 535

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Syllabus

The Internal Revenue Service filed claims in the Bankruptcy Court for taxes, interest, and penalties that accrued after debtor First Truck Lines, Inc., sought relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code but before the case was converted to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The court found that all of the IRS’s claims were entitled to first priority as administrative expenses under 11 U.S.C. §§ 503(b)(1)(C) and 507(a)(1), but held that the penalty claim was subject to "equitable subordination" under § 510(c), which the court interpreted as giving it authority not only to deal with inequitable Government conduct, but also to adjust a statutory priority of a category of claims. The court’s decision to subordinate the penalty claim to the claims of the general unsecured creditors was affirmed by the District Court and the Sixth Circuit, which concluded that post-petition, nonpecuniary loss tax penalty claims are susceptible to subordination by their very nature.

Held: A bankruptcy court may not equitably subordinate claims on a categorical basis in derogation of Congress’s priorities scheme. The language of § 510(c), principles of statutory construction, and legislative history clearly indicate Congress’s intent in its 1978 revision of the Code to use the existing judge-made doctrine of equitable subordination as the starting point for deciding when subordination is appropriate. By adopting "principles of equitable subordination," § 510(c) allows a bankruptcy court to reorder a tax penalty when justified by particular facts. It is also clear that Congress meant to give courts some leeway to develop the doctrine. However, a reading of the statute that would give courts leeway broad enough to allow subordination at odds with the congressional ordering of priorities by category is improbable in the extreme. The statute would then empower a court to modify the priority provision’s operation at the same level at which Congress operated when it made its characteristically general judgment to establish the hierarchy of claims in the first place, thus delegating legislative revision, not authorizing equitable exception. Nonetheless, just such a legislative type of decision underlies the reordering of priorities here. The Sixth Circuit’s decision runs directly counter to Congress’s policy judgment that a post-petition tax penalty should receive the priority of an administrative expense. Since the Sixth Circuit’s rationale was inappropriately categorical in nature, this Court need not decide whether a bankruptcy court must always find creditor misconduct before a claim may be equitably subordinated. Pp. 538-543.

48 F.3d 210, reversed and remanded.

SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.