Citizens Bank & Trust Co. v. Cline (In Re Cline)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

MERRITT S. DEITZ, Jr., Bankruptcy Judge.

In the case at hand, we lay aside stare decisis, statutory construction and other judicial tools in favor of the mystical process of arithmancy, “divination by the use of numbers.” 1 For we are confronted once again with the bankruptcy judge’s empirically impossible task, that of deciding how many cattle were in a bankrupt farmer’s field years ago, and where they went.

A complaint by Citizens State Bank and Trust Company of Glasgow states no fewer than six separate grounds for denying these debtors a discharge on all or part of the…