Posted on 07/19/2013 2:10:17 PM PDT by Hojczyk
An Ingham County judge says Thursday's historic Detroit bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn.
But Attorney General Bill Schuette said he will appeal Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s Friday rulings and seek emergency consideration by the Michigan Court of Appeals. He wants her orders stayed pending the appeals, he said in a news release.
In a spate of orders today arising from three separate lawsuits, Aquilina said Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr must take no further actions that threaten to diminish the pension benefits of City of Detroit retirees.
“I have some very serious concerns because there was this rush to bankruptcy court that didn’t have to occur and shouldn’t have occurred,” Aquilina said.
“Plaintiffs shouldn’t have been blindsided,” and “this process shouldn’t have been ignored.
Lawyers representing pensioners and two city pension funds got an emergency hearing with Aquilina Thursday at which she said she planned to issue an order to block the bankruptcy filing. But lawyers and the judge learned Orr filed the Detroit bankruptcy petition in Detroit five minutes before the hearing began.
Aquilina said the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees, including those in the City of Detroit. Snyder and Orr violated the constitution by going ahead with the bankruptcy filing, because they know reductions in those benefits will result, Aquilina said.
“We can’t speculate what the bankruptcy court might order,” said assistant Attorney General Brian Devlin, representing the governor and other state defendants.
“It’s a certainty, sir,” Aquilina replied. “That’s why you filed for bankruptcy.”
Devlin said Snyder has to follow both the Michigan Constitution and the U.S. Constitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at liveleak.com ...
“A rush to bankruptcy?”
Nope. This has been heading down that long and dusty road for quite awhile.
I am amazed at the Left’s ability to so quickly find a judge to give them the ruling they want.
50 years in the making - nobody was "blindsided".
LOL She’s gonna tell Obama on us.
So judge, will you be paying with a check, or your credit card?
This argument has been going on since 1815 or so. That’s how long ago civil government bankruptcy’s go back. The argument is that the community benefited from the expenditures, or at least had the power to vote out the offending government. Governments can declare any amount of taxes and therefore can’t technically go bankrupt.
Now, what the Michigan constitution has to say, I don’t know. But if Detroit can’t declare bankruptcy, then it can’t heal. (Actually, it is so far past saving that it should be under a protector-ship and never be allowed self government again.)
52 years of democrat rule in the mofo city.
Hardly being blindsided.
Isn’t the state court judge’s ruling an violation of the automatic stay that came into effect when Detroit filed for bankruptcy. As such the ruling is void and the attorneys who filed the bankruptcy should seek to have the attorneys who sought the ruling from the state court judge sanction in bankruptcy court. They should also have the bankrutpcy court rule that the state court judge’s ruling is void ab initio.
Really? With everything the NSA has been doing? The left's access to massive homeland databases allows them to find kindred souls easily now.
Wouldn’t be great if the judges ruling stands and then the people of Detroit had to have their taxes raised sky high and the companies had their cooperate rates raised sky high to finally pay for all these pensions. I think they should raise them until people hardly have a pay check left. Then maybe they will start looking at the people they put in office.
Nope. They’ll just move and infect other parts of the Country.
If they leave my state, all the better. It would turn my state away from dims
Yes, she is in violation of the federal Bankruptcy Code and is acting in contempt of the bankruptcy court. See my longer answer here:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3045095/posts?page=80#80
I don’t think the judge will get sanctioned but the attorneys who asked to her rule on the bankruptcy filing should be worried right now. They’ve clearly violated the stay and it would be hard to conclude that their actions are anything other than a willful violation of the stay.
So why can’t everyone just ignore her? That is what the white house would do. That is what they did to congress.
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