A bankruptcy trustee may recover for the bankruptcy estate so-called “preferential transfers”—certain payments made by the debtor within 90 days before the commencement of a bankruptcy case. To prevail, the trustee must show (among other things) that the creditor received a greater amount as a result of the transfer in question than such creditor would have received in a hypothetical liquidation under Chapter 7, had the challenged transfer not occurred.
This test, set out in Section 547(b)(5) of the Bankruptcy Code, is referred to as the “greater amount” test. In Schoenmann v. Bank of the West (In re Tenderloin Health), 849 F.3d 1231 (9th Cir. 2017), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether a bankruptcy court may account for hypothetical preference actions within a hypothetical Chapter 7 liquidation when determining whether a debt payment made by a debtor to its secured lender meets the “greater amount” test, such that it could be avoided by the trustee. Answering in the affirmative, the court held that bankruptcy courts may permissibly engage in such ”hypotheticals within hypotheticals” so long as the inquiry is factually warranted and is supported by appropriate evidence, and provided further that the hypothetical action would not contravene any other provision of the Bankruptcy Code.
