7th Circuit

To take advantage of a change in decisional law, a plan must be modified within the time limits imposed by Federal Rule 60(c), the Seventh Circuit says.

The City of Chicago argued unsuccessfully that liens on cars are statutory because they arise automatically when the car is impounded.

The district court opinion affirms the notion that bankruptcy courts have ‘core’ power without a jury to adjudicate claims of attorney misconduct.

Family lawyers should be acutely aware that bankruptcy protections for former spouses don’t cover unmarried couples.

So long as the debtor is paying unsecured creditors what chapter 13 requires, the debtor is not obliged to pursue preferences.

Seventh Circuit says that costs incurred by disciplinary authorities are not in compensation for ‘actual pecuniary loss.’

Despite Fulton, a Chicago bankruptcy judge rules that the City of Chicago might have violated Section 362(a)(4), (a)(6) or (a)(7) by refusing to release impounded cars immediately after a debtor files a chapter 13 petition.

The suggestion that the debtor never won undercut the poker player’s testimony about uncorroborated gambling losses.

Confirming a chapter 13 plan on the assumption that a claim was entitled to priority didn’t bar the debtors from later objecting to the priority of the claim.

The ‘conduct’ test in the Seventh Circuit, not the ‘accrual test,’ determines when a claim arose and whether it was discharged.