Lowe v. Bowers (In Re Nicole Gas Prod., Ltd.)

MERRITT, Circuit Judge.

*569 This is a bankruptcy contempt dispute. Normally a party's conduct is contemptuous or it is not. But in this unusual case, whether the defendants are in contempt depends on statutory construction. The question presented is whether the Ohio RICO statute gives the sole shareholder of a bankrupt corporation standing to circumvent the automatic stay and individually sue a competitor. The issue is a complex intersection of three areas of law: the principle of the derivative suit in corporate law, the function of the automatic stay in bankruptcy, and the extent and…