John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Route 37 Business Park Associates

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• stating that “[u]nless there is some requirement of keeping similar claims together, nothing would stand in the way of a debtor seeking out a few impaired creditors (or even one such creditor
• stating that “[t]he debtor’s explanation [for differential classification], based on the rights that Hancock would enjoy under state law if freed from the strictures of the Bankruptcy Code, is entirely beside the point”
• explaining that classification is proper in a cram-down case where each class represents a voting interest “sufficiently distinct and weighty to merit a separate voice in the decision whether the proposed reorganization should proceed”
• rejecting classification scheme which separately classified § 1111(b) deficiency claim from other unsecured creditors
• “ ‘How the claims of the [insurance company] and the trade creditors achieved their status’ ... ‘does not alter their current legal character and thus does not warrant separate classification.’ ”
• “Class Three was made up of all the unsecured claims other than Hancock’s.... Class Four consisted of Hancock’s unsecured claim.... The plan called for identical payments on the Class Three and Four claims.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).