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Four Connecticut nursing homes run by Affinity Healthcare Management Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection, blaming a slower intake of patients and a multimillion-dollar payment dispute with state health care officials over Medicaid money, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Executives who put Affinity Healthcare's nursing homes, including the 105-bed Ellis Manor in Hartford, Conn., into chapter 11 protection on Wednesday said that its facilities are seeing record-low numbers of patients, "like most of the other nursing homes in Connecticut." The 550-worker health-care company has struggled since emerging from bankruptcy in August 2010. Affinity Healthcare officials borrowed money at the end of its case that was "substantially more expensive than anticipated [in] costs and fees," draining a large amount of cash, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Haven, Conn. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

For further analysis of health care bankruptcy cases, be sure to pick up a copy of the ABI Health Care Insolvency Manual, Third Edition.

EZ Worldwide Express, which delivers shipments for retailers like Amazon.com Inc., Forever 21 Inc. and the Disney Store, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, blaming a disappointing holiday season that it said “fell far short” of expectations, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Executives who put the 700-worker company into bankruptcy this week said that they were caught off guard by the slow business in the fourth quarter, when the company typically takes in 40 percent of its yearly revenue. The Elizabeth, N.J.-based company, which had invested $12 million in trucks and facilities in a recent expansion, ran low on money, President Ajay Aggarwal said in court documents. Amid the trouble, the company withdrew too much money from a bank account in November.

Labor unions lost a major battle when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held in In re Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. that a bankruptcy court retains power to reject a labor contract even after it expired by its own terms, according to Rochelle’s Daily Wire today. The Third Circuit’s decision on Friday was the first appeals court to decide the issue. Lower courts are split. Click here to read the full summary. 

Additionally, an analysis by the Washington Post today found that Donald Trump’s statements during the Presidential campaign about his companies’ bankruptcies play down his personal role in the downfall of the Taj Mahal. For months in 1987, Trump maneuvered to take control of the unfinished Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City as he snapped up stock in the parent company after its owner died and then made a surprise bid to take the company private. With the Taj, along with two casinos he already owned in the city, Trump could dominate gambling on the East Coast. But first he needed to convince state gambling regulators that he was financially stable and could raise enough cash to complete the $1 billion project. On Feb. 8, 1988, at a licensing hearing in front of the state Casino Control Commission, Trump said that because of his reputation as a dealmaker, he said, bankers were lining up to lend him money at prime rates. That meant he could avoid the risky, high-interest loans known as junk bonds. Trump received the approvals he needed for the Taj, but the prime-rate loans never materialized. Read more.

With agricultural lenders fearing a tidal wave of farm bankruptcies as soon as this spring, lawyers in the Midwest say they want Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to raise the debt limit for so-called "family farmer" bankruptcies, Reuters reported yesterday. Farmers in states like Illinois, Indiana and Iowa are scrambling to secure lending for the 2016 growing season at a time when prices for their corn have halved from three years ago. As they seek restructuring advice, many are told their debts surpass the $4 million limit for a chapter 12 family farm bankruptcy, said at least five lawyers who represent either debtors or creditors. They say the $4 million cap is out of touch with most farms' current operating size, often thousands of acres of land paid for by expensive leases and worked using tractors that can cost more than $250,000. "The debt limit for chapter 12 bankruptcies should be raised to at least $10 million," said Joseph Peiffer, a bankruptcy attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Without a new limit, farmers would be forced into a more costly chapter 11 filing.

Hancock Fabrics Inc., a retail chain that sells sewing supplies, is preparing for a second trip to bankruptcy court, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Baldwyn, Miss.-based company previously filed for bankruptcy in March 2007, soon after announcing it would close about 100 stores. The retailer re-emerged the following year. Hancock included a warning about its ability to continue as a going concern in its third-quarter filing late last year. The money-losing retailer had about $3 million in cash in the quarter ended Oct. 31. At the time, the company operated about 260 stores in 37 states, along with an e-commerce site.