Duniver v. Clark Material Handling Co.

This case presents question as to whether trial court properly applied doctrine of judicial estoppel to grant defendants’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s personal injury action, where plaintiff had failed to disclose existence of instant action in his Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition. While trial court found that judicial estoppel applied because plaintiff had intentionally deceived bankruptcy trustee by failing to disclose existence of instant personal injury action as asset of bankruptcy estate, Appellate Court, in reversing trial court, found that judicial estoppel was not warranted, where plaintiff received no significant benefit from bankruptcy proceeding, since his debt was not discharged, and where plaintiff did not deliberately fail to disclose his personal injury claim to bankruptcy court. In their petition for leave to appeal, defendants argued that plaintiff did receive “some” benefit from his bankruptcy petition, where he received automatic stay of all collection proceedings when said petition was filed, and maintained that applicable standard only requires showing that debtor receive “some” benefit from taking factually inconsistent positions in two different courtrooms to invoke judicial estoppel.