Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, Inc. · ¶49

There are many reasons to doubt the logic of this argument, which may account for why “this Court has never applied judicial estoppel in the bankruptcy context.” Ante, at 7. To start, applying judicial estoppel to debtors still involved in open bankruptcies is more likely to hurt creditors than it is to help them. Instead, the party most likely to benefit is the potential tortfeasor in the separate proceeding: someone who is not prejudiced by the debtor’s earlier, inconsistent position, but whom judicial estoppel permits to escape liability.

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