Timothy J. Henderson, Trustee v. Neil Buchanan, and Bruno Menicucci, Anna Menicucci, and Menicucci Insurance Services, Inc.

A trustee representing five corporate debtors filed an adversary proceeding in bankruptcy against various individual and corporate defendants. The bankruptcy court found in favor of the trustee and entered judgment against the individual defendants and one corporate defendant. The defendants appealed to the district court, which reversed part of the judgment against two of the individual defendants and the corporate defendant. The trustee has timely appealed, arguing, inter alia, that the district court erred by finding that the two individual defendants were not liable for breaching their fiduciary duty to one of the corporate debtors. We reverse and remand.

FACTS AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

The underlying facts in this case have already been set forth at some length in both the bankruptcy court’s published decision, see Henderson v. Buchanan (In re Western World Funding, Inc.), 52 B.R. 743, 753-62 (Bankr.D.Nev.1985), and in the district court’s published opinion, see Buchanan v. Henderson, 131 B.R. 859, 862-64 (D.Nev.1990). Rather than recapitulate the details of facts that are not in serious dispute, anyway, we confine ourselves to a summary of only the salient points of this…