Case Explained: In re MICHAEL BURKE Debtor. ——————————– JASON BIONDOLILLO

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-07

Docket: 1:25-CV-02477-REB)

The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Jason Biondolillo’s appeal from a bankruptcy court order. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the appeal for failure to prosecute due to Biondolillo’s repeated failure to file an appendix complying with Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 8018 and Tenth Circuit Local Rules. The court applied an abuse of discretion standard to review the dismissal, noting that pro se litigants must follow the same procedural rules as other parties. The court found that Biondolillo’s submitted appendices were non-compliant because they either lacked copies of the documents listed in their indexes, failed to include a table of contents, or were not consecutively paginated to distinguish appendix page numbers from underlying document page numbers. Although the deficiencies were technical and curable, the court concluded the district court did not err because Biondolillo failed to respond to the district court’s specific order granting him an additional fourteen days to cure the defects before the mandate issued. The court further ruled that the *Ehrenhaus* factors regarding intentional misconduct were inapplicable because the dismissal was based on a failure to comply with procedural requirements rather than a sanction for bad faith. As a practical consequence, the appeal remains dismissed, and the district court’s order stands as final. Biondolillo’s motion to proceed on appeal *in forma pauperis* is granted, but without a compliant record, the appellate court cannot review the merits of his request to revoke the debtor’s discharge.

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