Silao v. Anderson

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 20 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

IN RE: PANDORA HOSPICE CARE, No. 24-5024 INC. D.C. No. 5:23-cv-02050-DOC Debtor MEMORANDUM*

NICHOLAS SILAO, Appellant, v. KARL T. ANDERSON, Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California David O. Carter, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted October 22, 2025 Pasadena, California Before: R. NELSON and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges, and COLE, District Judge.**

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

Appellant Nicholas Silao seeks review of a district court order affirming a bankruptcy court decision in this turnover action. Specifically, Silao contends that: (1) the bankruptcy court clearly erred in finding that Silao owed a $137,000 debt to the debtor, Pandora Hospice Care, Inc.; (2) the bankruptcy court abused its discretion in awarding Pandora prejudgment interest; and (3) the bankruptcy court abused its discretion in declining to grant Silao a new trial. According to Silao, the $137,000 in funds he admittedly received from Pandora was not a loan from Pandora, but rather a partial repayment for some $442,000 that Silao had earlier loaned to Pandora.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 158(d)(1). Like the district court below, we review findings of fact for clear error. In re Tucson Ests., Inc., 912 F.2d 1162, 1166 (9th Cir. 1990). We review an award of prejudgment interest for an abuse of discretion. In re Agric. Rsch. & Tech. Grp., Inc., 916 F.2d 528, 533 (9th Cir. 1990) (citing W. Pac. Fisheries, Inc. v. S.S. President Grant, 730 F.2d 1280, 1289 (9th Cir. 1984)). And we likewise review the bankruptcy court’s denial of a motion for a new trial for an abuse of discretion. Williams v. Gaye, 895 F.3d 1106, 1122–23 (9th Cir. 2018) (citing Lam v. City of San Jose, 869 F.3d 1077, 1084 (9th Cir. 2017)). These deferential standards of review largely doom Silao’s appeal.

Because the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not belabor them here.

Meza-Carmona v. Garland, 113 F.4th 1163, 1167 (9th Cir. 2024) (citation omitted).

As an appellate body, we must “give due regard to the trial court’s opportunity to judge the witnesses’ credibility.” In re The Village at Lakeridge, LLC, 814 F.3d 993, 1002 (9th Cir. 2016) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a)(6)). And “so long as the bankruptcy court’s findings are ‘plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety,’” we may not reverse “even if we ‘would have weighed the evidence differently.’” Id. (quoting Anderson v. City of Bessemer, 470 U.S. 564, 574 (1985)).

Here, given (1) the inconsistencies among Pandora’s original and amended tax returns (the latter of which an accountant prepared at Silao’s direction after Pandora filed for bankruptcy); (2) that Silao himself prepared the Pandora checks indicating that the amounts Silao received from Pandora were loan repayments; (3) the bankruptcy court’s determination that Silao was not credible, which we are poorly suited to revisit; (4) the testimony from Karl T. Anderson, Pandora’s Chapter 7 trustee, whom the bankruptcy court did find credible; and (5) the lack of any documentary evidence confirming that Silao had previously transferred money to Pandora as he claimed, we cannot say that the bankruptcy court clearly erred in determining that Pandora loaned Silao $137,000 (rather than finding the funds represented partial repayment for an earlier loan from Silao to Pandora).

Nor did the bankruptcy court abuse its discretion in awarding prejudgment interest. Absent a statutory directive, trial courts have discretion to award prejudgment interest in cases arising under federal law. Ministry of Def. & Support for the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran v. Cubic Def. Sys., Inc., 665 F.3d 1091, 1102 (9th Cir. 2011). The bankruptcy court appropriately exercised that discretion in deciding to award such interest here.

It did, however, abuse its discretion in determining the date on which prejudgment interest began to accrue. The bankruptcy court held that prejudgment interest began to accrue on December 31, 2016, a date it selected because Pandora’s

S.D.N.Y. 2020). We find persuasive this focus on when the money came due to the debtor, and we elect to follow it here. It appears that Anderson filed his turnover complaint without first making a demand. So the date he filed the complaint (and thus demanded the money)—October 2, 2018—fixes the date on which prejudgment interest began to accrue. We therefore vacate the district court’s award of interest and remand for a new award consistent with this disposition.

Finally, the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in declining to grant Silao a new trial. Silao based his request on evidence to which he had access at the time of the trial in the bankruptcy court. But a “defendant’s desire to introduce additional evidence after losing the case d[oes] not constitute a proper ground for granting a new trial.” Brown v. Wright, 588 F.2d 708, 710 (9th Cir. 1978).

AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED and VACATED in part, and REMANDED.