(Unpublished) - John Eugene Notary; Case No. 13-12382 HRT; Order entered March 15, 2016. Removal and Remand, 28 U.S.C. § 1452; Abstention, 28 U.S.C. § 1334.

Previously, the Debtor had moved, under 11 U.S.C. § 522(f), to avoid judgment liens held by attorneys who had represented his former spouse in a pre-petition domestic case. Those § 522(f) motions were dismissed with prejudice, however, after the Debtor failed to cooperate with discovery. Thereafter, the attorneys moved in state court for writs of execution to force the sale of the Debtor's home to satisfy their judgment liens. The pro se Debtor filed notices removing those state court cases to this Court. Upon the Court's consideration of the attorneys' motion for remand, the Court determined that it must abstain from hearing the state court matters under 28 U.S.C. § 1334(c)(2)'s mandatory abstention provisions and, even if abstention were not mandatory, discretionary abstention was appropriate. The bankruptcy case had been fully administered; the removed cases presented exclusively state law issues and forum shopping by the Debtor was a distinct possibility. Each side also sought sanctions against the other. The Debtor claimed the attorneys violated the discharge injunction and the attorneys sought Rule 9011 sanctions based on the Debtor's removal of the state cases. The Court found that the attorneys had not violated the discharge injunction both because their judgment liens were unaffected by the Debtor's chapter 7 discharge and because the underlying attorney fee awards in the domestic case were not dischargeable debts in any case. The Court also declined to consider Rule 9011 sanctions even though the attorneys' case for such sanctions was much stronger. The Court found the utility of further proceedings on the sanctions issue was outweighed by its concerns over multiplying legal proceedings and by the fact that, following remand, the parties would be back under the jurisdiction of a state court with a long history dealing with the same parties and the power to sanction improper conduct.