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Enron and Anna Nicole Smith
On May 1, 2008, Cooley Godward Kronish LLP's bankruptcy litigation team, acting as counsel to the Official Employment-Related Issues Committee of Enron Corp. (the 'Employee Committee'), obtained a court-approved settlement of $850,000 from the Estate of John Cliff Baxter (the 'Baxter Estate'), a former 'Top Hat' executive of Enron who elected to accelerate approximately $1.3 million in deferred compensation benefits on the eve of the bankruptcy filing and committed suicide shortly thereafter. That and other similar transfers were challenged by the Employee Committee in a complaint filed against Baxter and other former executives alleging causes of action in preference and fraudulent transfer.
Although a number of the transferees challenged (unsuccessfully) the personal jurisdiction of the Enron bankruptcy court, only the Baxter Estate challenged its jurisdiction over the subject matter of the litigation. In a motion for summary judgment filed in December 2005, the Baxter Estate asserted that the Enron bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the Employee Committee's action under the so-called 'probate exception' to federal jurisdiction. The probate exception is a judicially crafted exception to otherwise proper federal jurisdiction that reserves to state probate courts such exclusive powers as the annulment of a will, the administration of a decedent's estate, and the disposal of property in their custody. At its core, the probate exception reiterates the general principle that where one court is exercising jurisdiction over property, a second court should not assume jurisdiction over the same property.
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