Wray v. Barmat

UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
FORT LAUDERDALE DIVISION
In re:
INVESTMENTS SWK, LLC, 	Case No. 24-10630-SMG
Debtor. 	Chapter 7
_________________________________/
LORNE A. WRAY,
Plaintiff,
v. 	Adv. No. 25-1391-SMG
MARC P. BARMAT, Chapter 7 Trustee,
Defendant.
_________________________________/
ORDER DISMISSING COMPLAINT FOR LACK OF SUBJECT
MATTER JURISDICTION AND DENYING MOTION TO REMAND
Without seeking leave of this Court to do so Lorne Wray – the principal and
sole member of debtor Investments SWK, LLC – sued the chapter 7 trustee, Marc P.
Barmat, 	in 	state 	court 	while 	the 	debtor’s 	bankruptcy 	case 	was 	still 	pending.
Scott M. Grossman, Chief Judge
United States Bankruptcy Court	_____________________________________________________________________________
ORDERED in the Southern District of Florida on March 23, 2026.
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Mr. Barmat removed the state court civil action to this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1452,1
and now seeks its dismissal with prejudice based on judicial immunity, res judicata
and collateral estoppel, and for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be
granted.2 For the reasons that follow, however, the Court must instead dismiss the
complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Background
Investments 	SWK 	filed 	a 	voluntary 	petition 	under 	chapter 	11 	of 	the
Bankruptcy Code on January 24, 2024.3 Its principal asset was a commercial office
building in Pompano Beach, Florida.4 Less than two months after the case was filed,
two secured creditors moved to convert the case to a chapter 7 liquidation.5 After that
motion was filed, the debtor’s attorney moved to withdraw as counsel.6 The Court
then granted the motion to convert,7 granted the attorney’s motion to withdraw,8 and
converted this case to chapter 7 on May 2, 2024. Marc P. Barmat was appointed as
chapter 7 trustee,9 and the Court then approved Mr. Barmat’s employment of Furr
and Cohen, P.A. as his counsel.10
1 Dkt. No. 1.
2 Dkt. No. 6.
3 Case No. 24-10630-SMG (Main Case), Dkt. No. 1. The debtor had previously filed another bankruptcy
case on November 22, 2022, but that case was dismissed on January 9, 2023. Case No. 22-18989-MAM
(Bankr. S.D. Fla.).
4 Main Case, Dkt. No. 207.
5 Id., Dkt. No. 49.
6 Id., Dkt. No. 58.
7 Id., Dkt. No. 70.
8 Id., Dkt. No. 77.
9 Id., Dkt. No. 73.
10 Id., Dkt. No. 78.
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On July 25, 2024, the Court approved the trustee’s sale of the office building
for $5.5 million.11 The sale price was insufficient to pay in full all claims secured by
an interest in the office building and thus did not result in any proceeds being
available for distribution to general unsecured creditors. Certain secured creditors,
however, consented to a “carveout” from their proceeds to provide funds for the
administration of the case.12 Even this amount, however, was insufficient to pay in
full all chapter 7 and chapter 11 administrative expense claims,13 or any other
unsecured claims given priority in payment by the Bankruptcy Code.14 As a result,
general unsecured creditors will not receive a distribution in this case.15
Mr. Wray – representing himself – had filed a $157,088.95 unsecured proof of
claim for management services and consulting fees.16 On July 19, 2024, the United
States trustee objected to Mr. Wray’s claim.17 After Mr. Wray failed to timely file any
response to the objection, on September 13, 2024, the Court entered an order
sustaining the objection and disallowing Mr. Wray’s claim.18 Mr. Wray then filed four
11 Id., Dkt. No. 207.
12 Id., Dkt. No. 112.
13 In a chapter 7 case that has been converted from chapter 11, the chapter 11 administrative expenses
are subordinated to payment in full of the chapter 7 administrative expenses. See 11 U.S.C. § 726(b).
14 See 11 U.S.C. § 507(a). Unsecured claims given priority by the Bankruptcy Code include
administrative expenses (second priority), certain wages earned within 180 days of the bankruptcy
filing (fourth priority), certain customer deposit claims (seventh priority), and certain tax liabilities
(eighth priority). Id. Each class of priority claims must be paid in full before any funds can be paid to
the next class in order of priority. See 11 U.S.C. § 726(a)(1). This means that when a case is
“administratively insolvent” – i.e., there are insufficient funds to pay all administrative expense claims
in full – there will be no distribution to any other priority class below that of administrative expenses,
and no distribution to any general unsecured (nonpriority) creditors.
15 Main Case, Dkt. No. 303.
16 Id., Claim No. 20–1.
17 Id., Dkt. No. 199.
18 Id., Dkt. No. 245.
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successive motions to reconsider19 the order disallowing his claim.20 The Court denied
each one.21
After closing on the sale of the office building and resolving other matters in
the case, Mr. Barmat and his retained professionals filed final applications for
compensation and reimbursement of expenses,22 which the Court set for hearing at
10:30 a.m. on November 4, 2025.23 All creditors – as well as Mr. Wray24 – were given
notice of the hearing to consider the final fee applications, as required by Federal
Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2002(a)(6).25 Mr. Wray did not file any objections to
the final fee applications, nor did he attend the hearing.26 On November 13, 2025, the
Court then entered an order approving and awarding final fees and expenses to
Mr. Barmat as trustee, as well as to Mr. Barmat’s law firm, Furr and Cohen, P.A., as
attorneys for the trustee.27 No party has appealed that order.
About an hour before the time set for the final fee application hearings in this
Court, Mr. Wray – rather than attending and raising any objections (to the extent he
even had standing to do so) – instead was filing a complaint for damages against
19 Id., Dkt. Nos. 274, 287, 289–290, 298.
20 Both the United States trustee’s objection and Mr. Wray’s repeated requests for reconsideration of
the order disallowing his claim proved to have been futile. There was no money available for
distribution to unsecured creditors (indeed, the sale did not even generate enough to pay all secured
claims in full). With no funds available for distribution to unsecured creditors, Mr. Wray’s recovery on
his claim would have been $0.00 whether his claim was allowed or not.
21 Id., Dkt. Nos. 284, 288, 291, 299.
22 Id., Dkt. Nos. 269, 279, 296, 297.
23 Id., Dkt. Nos. 310, 311, 312.
24 Because Mr. Wray’s claim was disallowed by a final order, he is not a creditor.
25 Id., Dkt. Nos. 313, 314, 317, 319.
26 See id., Dkt. No. 331.
27 Id., Dkt. No. 326. The Court also entered separate orders on November 5, 2025, approving and
awarding the final fees and expenses of the trustee’s other retained professionals. Id., Dkt. Nos. 321,
322.
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Mr. Barmat in the Circuit Court of the 15 th Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach
County, Florida.28 In his complaint, Mr. Wray asserts six counts against Mr. Barmat,
seeking damages of $157,088.95, plus treble damages of $457,266.85, plus punitive
damages of $2,000,000.00 under Florida Statutes § 768.73(b)(2)(c), for a total claim
of $2,628,335.80, as follows:
• 	Count I – Marc P. Barmat’s (the “Trustee”) Deceptive Tactic I,
Violations of Court Order [Doc 77];
• 	Count II – Marc P. Barmat’s (the “Trustee”) Deceptive Tactic II,
Violation and abuse of Court Order [Doc 81];
• 	Count III – Marc P. Barmat’s (the “Trustee”) Deceptive Tactic III,
Trustee’s 	Violation 	of 	Florida 	Statute 	§ 	817.034 	(“Scheme 	to
Defraud”);
• 	Count IV – Marc P. Barmat’s (the “Trustee”) Deceptive Tactic IV, Act
of Violation, Intentional Misconduct and Gross Negligence Actions;
• 	Count V – Marc P. Barmat’s (the “Trustee”) Deceptive Tactic V, Mail
Fraud; and
• 	Count VI – Marc P. Barmat’s (the “Trustee”) Deceptive Tactic VI,
Fraudulent 	Scheme, 	Marc 	P. 	Barmat, 	tht 	[sic.] 	Trustee, 	is
“collectable.”
Through these six counts, Mr. Wray essentially alleges that Mr. Barmat obstructed
Mr. Wray’s mail by taking possession of mailbox keys, the result of which was that
Mr. Wray allegedly did not receive certain correspondence, including the United
States trustee’s objection to his proof of claim.
On November 25, 2025, Mr. Barmat removed that civil action to this Court
under 28 U.S.C. § 1452(a).29 He then moved to dismiss the complaint with prejudice.30
The Court set the motion to dismiss for hearing on February 3, 2026.31 In advance of
28 Wray v. Barmat, No. 50-2025-CA-011575-XXXA-MB (Fla. Cir. Ct. Nov. 4, 2025).
29 Dkt. No. 1.
30 Dkt. No. 6.
31 Dkt. No. 10.
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that hearing, Mr. Wray filed an expedited motion for remand32 which the Court also
heard on February 3, 2026.33
Although 	this 	Court 	has 	approved 	final 	compensation 	applications 	for
Mr. Barmat and his professionals in the debtor’s bankruptcy case, and Mr. Barmat
has begun making final distributions from the estate, he has not concluded doing so.
As such, the case remains open. According to Mr. Barmat at the February 3, 2026
hearing, he is still holding approximately $30,000.00 for distribution to holders of
certain unpaid administrative expense claims.
Discussion
Mr. Barmat seeks dismissal with prejudice based on judicial immunity, res
judicata and collateral estoppel, and for failure to state a claim upon which relief may
be granted.34 Before getting to the substantive grounds for dismissal, the Court must
first consider its own subject matter jurisdiction, which here requires an analysis of
both the Barton doctrine and removal jurisdiction. In Barton v. Barbour,35 the
Supreme Court held in 1881 that “a court of another State has not jurisdiction,
without leave of the court by which the receiver was appointed, to entertain a suit
against him for a cause of action arising in the State in which he was appointed and
in which the property in his possession is situated, based on his negligence or that of
his servants in the performance of their duty in respect of such property.”36 In other
32 Dkt. No. 13.
33 Dkt. No. 14.
34 Dkt. No. 6.
35 104 U.S. 126 (1881).
36 Id. at 137.
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words, under what became known as the Barton doctrine, before suing a court-
appointed fiduciary in a court other than that which appointed the fiduciary, the
plaintiff must first obtain leave of the appointing court to do so. Failure to obtain
prior leave deprives the court in which suit is brought of subject matter jurisdiction.
In 2000 in Carter v. Rodgers,37 the Eleventh Circuit first applied the Barton
doctrine to bankruptcy cases and held that “a debtor first must obtain leave from the
bankruptcy court before it can initiate an action” in another court “when that action
is against the trustee or other bankruptcy-court-appointed officer, for acts done in the
actor’s official capacity.”38 Since that time, however, the Eleventh Circuit has pared
back its Barton jurisprudence to exclude closed bankruptcy (and receivership)
cases,39 where the estate – the res over which the court exercised in rem jurisdiction
– no longer existed.40
This case, however, is still open and there is still an estate over which this
Court has exclusive jurisdiction.41 As such, the Barton doctrine applies and, as a
result, the state court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over Mr. Wray’s complaint
37 220 F.3d 1249 (11th Cir. 2000).
38 Id. at 1252; see also Lawrence v. Goldberg, 573 F.3d 1265, 1269 (11th Cir. 2009).
39 See In re Keitel, 636 B.R. 845, 848–52 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2022) (summarizing the Eleventh Circuit’s
Barton doctrine jurisprudence from Carter, 220 F.3d 1249 (applying Barton to bankruptcy cases), to
Lawrence, 573 F.3d 1265, 1269 (extending Barton’s protection to “court-approved counsel, other court-
approved professionals, and even certain creditors the court found to have functioned as court
appointed officers”), to Tufts v. Hay, 977 F.3d 1204 (11th Cir. 2020) (holding that Barton does not apply
when the bankruptcy court’s in rem jurisdiction ends), to Chua v. Ekonomou, 1 F.4th 948 (11th Cir.
2021) (disavowing previously endorsed policy considerations for applying Barton, but noting that
court-appointed receivers are entitled to judicial immunity for acts taken within the scope of their
authority)).
40 See Chua, 1 F.4th at 954; Tufts, 977 F.3d at 1209.
41 See 28 U.S.C. § 1334(e)(1) (“The district court in which a case under title 11 is commenced or is
pending shall have exclusive jurisdiction — (1) of all the property, wherever located, of the debtor as
of the commencement of such case, and of property of the estate.”).
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because he did not first obtain leave of this Court before filing his suit.42 Because
removal jurisdiction is a derivative jurisdiction, however, if there was no jurisdiction
in the state court, then this Court also lacks subject matter jurisdiction.
As Justice Brandeis stated for the Supreme Court in its 1922 opinion in
Lambert Run Coal Co. v. Baltimore & O.R. Co.:43
As the state court was without jurisdiction over either the subject-
matter or the United States, the District Court could not acquire
jurisdiction over them by the removal. The jurisdiction of the federal
court on removal is, in a limited sense, a derivative jurisdiction. If the
state court lacks jurisdiction of the subject-matter or of the parties, the
federal court acquires none, although it might in a like suit originally
brought there have had jurisdiction.44
Thus, under Barton the state court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over Mr. Wray’s
complaint when he filed it. Under Lambert Run Coal, however, Mr. Barmat’s removal
of that suit to this Court does not cure the jurisdictional defect. There was no
jurisdiction when the complaint was filed, so there is no jurisdiction here, and the
Court must therefore dismiss Mr. Wray’s complaint.45
42 See Carter, 220 F.3d at 1252.
43 258 U.S. 377 (1922).
44 Id. at 382 (citing Courtney v. Pradt, 196 U.S. 89, 92 (1905); American Well Works v. Layne, 241 U.S.
257, 258 (1916)); see Reynolds v. Behrman Capital IV L.P., 988 F.3d 1314, 1317 (11th Cir. 2021) (“if a
state court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over a case when it is initially filed, a federal court also
lacks subject-matter jurisdiction when the case is removed (even if the federal court would have had
jurisdiction had the case originally been filed in a federal forum).”).
45 If this Court had subject matter jurisdiction over this adversary proceeding, however, the Court
would have dismissed it with prejudice based on judicial immunity under In re Juravan, 2024 WL
4677417, at *6 (11th Cir. 2024); Chua, 1 F. 4th at 955; and Prop. Mgmt. & Invs., Inc. v. Lewis, 752 F.2d
599, 602 (11th Cir. 1985), as well as on the preclusive effect of this Court’s earlier rulings in this case.
See Main Case Dkt. Nos. 245, 284, 288, 291, 299, 326.
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Conclusion
Accordingly, it is ORDERED that:
1. 	Mr. Barmat’s motion to dismiss is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED
IN PART, as set forth herein.
2. 	The complaint is DISMISSED for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
3. 	Mr. Wray’s motion to remand is DENIED.
4. 	All other relief requested by Mr. Barmat is DENIED WITHOUT
PREJUDICE.
# # #
All counsel of record will receive copies of this Order by CM/ECF. The Clerk is directed
to serve a copy of this Order by mail to:
Lorne A. Wray
11419 W Palmetto Park Road, #970102
Boca Raton, FL 33497
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