Andrew Bennett, et al. v. Jefferson County, Alabama

May the doctrine of equitable mootness bar an appeal to an Article III Judge of a Plan of Adjustment providing for ratemaking enforcement authority by the Bankruptcy Court of sewer user rates and fees pledged to pay refinanced pre-petition Sewer revenue warrants for forty years in violation of the Tenth Amendment‘s reservation of municipal utility ratemaking authority to the States and to the people?

If the Bankruptcy Act allows appeals to be mooted for only two specific consummated transfers or distributions of property (defined in 11 USCS § 1101(2)) unless a stay is obtained before the appeal, to wit:

business asset sales or leases (11 USCS § 363), and

loans or credit advances of new post-petition operating funding secured by business assets in priority to other creditors (11 USCS § 364). This case raises the extremely significant issue of how can the Judge made doctrine of Equitable Mootness extend and enlarge the mooting of appeals from two to all consummated transactions unless a stay is obtained before the appeal, and not contravene the Act and Congressional limits on the types of transfers plainly stated in § 363 and § 364 which may be mooted as proscribed by the Act?

Because under the Tenth Amendment judicial power to determine the extent of Federal jurisdiction over municipal sewer utility ratemaking resides in an Article III Court, may an Article I, legislative Judge use the doctrine of equitable estoppel to bar