Joining the Tenth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit also has held that chapter 13 trustees are not paid their fees when cases are dismissed before confirmation. The identical issue was argued on February 15 before the Second Circuit.
In short order, we’ll have either unanimity or a split of circuits. A split will give rise to an issue worthy of a grant of certiorari by the Supreme Court.
Notably, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion on June 12 adopted reasoning in an amicus brief filed in support of the debtor by the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center and National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.
Hard cases make bad law, but Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth E. Brown of Denver took a hard case to make good law. Although the debtor was not a sympathetic character, Judge Brown reached a result implied.....
The Supreme Court has postponed oral argument in City of Chicago v. Fulton until the new term to begin in October 2020.
In Fulton, the justices will resolve a split of circuits regarding the automatic.....
The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit held in substance that a bankruptcy court cannot decline to rule on a request for a comfort order and must tell a creditor whether its contemplated.....
The PACER system for filing documents electronically in bankruptcy court is not user-friendly. Indeed, the system is tediously idiosyncratic and intolerant of the uninitiated.
Bankruptcy Judge R.....
In Taggart, the Supreme Court raised the bar on holding a creditor in contempt for violating the automatic stay. Some might say that the high court defanged the discharge. See Taggart v. Lorenzen, 139.....
Even if a claim is subject to a bona fide dispute, the claim is still included in the calculation to determine whether the debtor has too much debt to be eligible for chapter 13.
The facts would make.....
Holding that “the reasonable reliance requirement is a low hurdle for creditors to satisfy,” the Fifth Circuit decided that the bankruptcy court’s findings of fact were clearly erroneous, and directed.....
If a chapter 13 debtor commits an unauthorized post-petition transfer and the case is converted to chapter 7, is there property of the estate that the chapter 7 trustee is entitled to recover?
The.....
Here’s a cautionary tale from the liquidation of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme: For having lost a discovery motion, Bankruptcy Judge Stuart M. Bernstein of Manhattan directed the lawyer to pay the.....
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Taggart that the bankruptcy court “may impose civil contempt sanctions when there is no objectively reasonable basis for concluding that the creditor.....