Michael Sweet was quoted in The Detroit News article "All Sides Prepare for Bankruptcy Appeals." While the full text can be found in the November 20, 2013, issue of The Detroit News, a synopsis is noted below.
The city of Detroit, and several groups fighting to kick it out of bankruptcy court, have hired lawyers to file immediate appeals of a judge's impending ruling on the city's Chapter 9 eligibility.
Ahead of the eligibility hearing, one labor union has asked Judge Steven Rhodes to allow them to directly appeal his decision to the 6th Circuit, skipping normal stops in U.S. District Court in Detroit and a regional bankruptcy appellate panel.
Attorneys said such a move would be extraordinary, but not out of the question.
"If this were not a high-profile case like it is, just getting to the circuit court would take years flowing through the intermediate steps," said Michael Sweet.
In another municipal bankruptcy, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury denied the California Public Employees' Retirement System's second request to appeal San Bernardino's bankruptcy eligibility directly to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Given the way Judge Rhodes has treated Detroit, I wouldn't be surprised if he treated a request for a direct appeal differently than Judge Jury," Sweet said. "A pragmatic approach might be to ... skip the intermediate steps."
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