Lamie v. United States Trustee

John Lamie (plaintiff) represented Equipment Services, Inc. (ESI) in their Chapter 11 bankruptcy matter, with approval of the court under 11 U.S.C. § 327. Three months into the Chapter 11 reorganization, the trustee (defendant) filed a motion to convert the matter to a Chapter 7 liquidation. The court granted the motion and terminated Lamie’s appointment pursuant to § 327. Following the termination, Lamie continued to provide legal services to ESI without trustee authorization. After some time, Lamie sought compensation for services rendered after the Chapter 7 conversion, but his fee application was denied by the bankruptcy court, the district court, and the Fourth Circuit. Lamie argued that the statute was ambiguous and, therefore, the legislative history should be consulted. Lamie stated that the word “attorney” in subsection (A) could not be reconciled with the first part of the section, because Congress either inadvertently omitted debtor’s attorney from the list of payees or inadvertently retained the reference to the attorney in the later section. Lamie also argued that the amended version was missing the conjunction “or,” and there was no reason, other than error, that explained why Congress would have created a grammatically incorrect condition. Each court held that in a Chapter 7 matter, § 330(a)(1) did not authorize attorney’s fees unless the attorney had been appointed under § 327, and because Lamie was not appointed in this manner, his fee request should be denied. Lamie sought certiorari from the United States Supreme Court.