## Facts

- Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc. and affiliates (the debtors) operated the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
- The debtors filed Chapter 11 petitions on September 9, 2014.
- A collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the debtors and UNITE HERE Local 54 (the union) expired on September 14, 2014, shortly after the bankruptcy filing.
- After expiration, the debtors proposed substantial labor concessions, including changes to pension contributions and healthcare obligations; the union rejected the proposal.
- The union undertook a public pressure campaign connected to the labor dispute, including communications to customers and potential customers urging them not to do business with the Taj Mahal and to cancel or reconsider events.
- The debtors filed a motion seeking an order “enforcing” the automatic stay, asserting the union’s boycott-related communications were barred by 11 U.S.C. § 362 because the union was a creditor with employee wage and benefit claims.
- The union argued its conduct was labor speech and related activity arising from a labor dispute and was not an act to collect a prepetition claim or to exercise control over estate property; it also invoked the Norris-LaGuardia Act’s limits on federal court injunctions in labor disputes.
- The bankruptcy court heard the stay motion based on stipulated facts and documentary exhibits.

## Issues

1. Whether the union’s boycott-related communications to customers and potential customers were acts to obtain possession of, or exercise control over, property of the estate in violation of 11 U.S.C. § 362(a)(3).
2. Whether the union’s conduct was an act to collect, assess, or recover a prepetition claim against the debtors in violation of 11 U.S.C. § 362(a)(6).
3. Whether, even if § 362(a) could be implicated, the Norris-LaGuardia Act restricts the bankruptcy court from granting injunctive or declaratory relief against the union’s labor-related publicity in a labor dispute.

## Decision

- The court denied the debtors’ motion to enforce the automatic stay against the union.
- The court held the union’s customer-directed boycott publicity was not an act to obtain possession of or exercise control over estate property under § 362(a)(3).
- The court held the union’s conduct was not an act to collect or recover a prepetition claim under § 362(a)(6), but instead constituted economic pressure and public advocacy tied to labor negotiations.
- The court recognized that the Norris-LaGuardia Act applies in bankruptcy and limits the court’s ability to enjoin labor-dispute-related publicity and similar activities.

## Legal Principles

- The automatic stay under § 362(a)(3) targets acts to take possession of, or exercise control over, estate property; customer-directed boycott advocacy is not, without more, an exercise of control over estate property.
- The automatic stay under § 362(a)(6) bars acts to collect prepetition claims, but does not automatically convert union economic pressure in a labor dispute into debt collection merely because the union is also a creditor.
- The Norris-LaGuardia Act restricts federal courts, including bankruptcy courts, from issuing injunctions in cases involving or growing out of labor disputes, and those limits constrain the availability of stay-based injunctive relief directed at labor-related publicity.

## Conclusion

The bankruptcy court refused to treat a union’s public boycott campaign aimed at customers as a stay violation, concluding it was labor-dispute economic pressure rather than control of estate property or collection of a prepetition claim, and further held that federal anti-injunction limits under the Norris-LaGuardia Act constrained the relief sought.


In re Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., 534 B.R. 93 (Bankr. D. Del. 2015)