Summary:

In the follow up to Siegel v. Fitzgerald, 596 U. S. 464,  where the Supreme Court found that  the disparity in bankruptcy fees between Chapter 11 debtors in U.S. Trustee districts and those in Bankruptcy Administrator districts violated the Bankruptcy Clause's uniformity requirement.,  here the Supreme Court addressed the remedy for that violation. The appropriate remedy was to require equal fees for all Chapter 11 debtors going forward (prospective parity), aligning with congressional intent and correcting the constitutional issue and that a refund (estimated $326 million burden on taxpayers)  was not due to those Chapter 11 debtors.

Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justices Thomas and Barrett, dissented,  criticizing the majority for focusing on what Congress might have done to fix the issue prospectively, rather than addressing the past harm., and  contending that the majority's approach left the injured parties without adequate relief.

Commentary:

It would be  interesting to consider how these opinions might be shuffled  if,  instead of a constitutional  violation of the requirement of "uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies"  this was a case of constitutional violations of the "equal protection"  clause of the 14th Amendment.

Perhaps the majority could distinguish sufficiency of merely  prospective relief  based on whether the violation was  a "short-lived and small disparity",  but it would seem that Justice Gorsuch's  dissent could be used as a strong argument for reparations as an appropriate and even necessary remedy for any constitutional violation.

But nobody else reads SCOTUS bankruptcy opinions anyways.

To read a copy of the transcript, please see: