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.
To deny an individual’s discharge under Section 727(a)(5) for failure “to explain satisfactorily” a loss of assets, the First Circuit held that the missing assets need not be substantial.
Objecting to.....
Circuit Judge Thomas L. Ambro has written another gem.
For the Third Circuit in an opinion on September 3, Judge Ambro drew the boundaries between the rules of preclusion and the Rooker-Feldman doctrin.....
In an important decision, the Second Circuit held that a creditor may not use an uncontested claim allowance in an offensive use of claim preclusion if it would be “unfair.”
In her August 8 opinion.....
Affirming the bankruptcy court, a district judge in Brooklyn identified a loophole allowing chapter 13 debtors in some states to assert a homestead exemption without having the exemption prevent the.....
Twenty-seven months after oral argument, the Second Circuit avoided making a circuit split, sided with three other circuits, and held that a chapter 13 standing trustee “cannot keep any percentage fee.....
On an issue where the circuits are divided, Bankruptcy Judge Patricia M. Mayer of Reading, Pa., decided that she could not employ equity to extend a deadline that had expired — in this case, the.....
While most courts more recently are allowing the debtor to dismiss a chapter 13 case even when creditors prefer conversion to chapter 7, a decision by Bankruptcy Judge Michael A. Fagone of Bangor.....
Holding that a debtor’s lawyer has no Seventh Amendment right for a jury to decide what the debtor owes for fees in connection with a chapter 7 case, the Third Circuit upheld bankruptcy courts’ power.....
With courts divided on the interpretation of 28 U.S.C. § 1412 about transferring venue in bankruptcy cases, a district judge in Rochester, N.Y., has adopted the approach from the Southern District of.....
As a more effective and targeted remedy for dismissal of a chapter 13 petition filed in bad faith, New York’s Bankruptcy Judge Philip Bentley dismissed, but with a proviso that the automatic stay in a.....