Limits of Bankruptcy Court Authority: A Reminder from the Eleventh Circuit

By James Davis, Staff Attorney to Chapter 13 Standing Trustee Henry E. Hildebrand, III (Nashville, TN)

The Eleventh Circuit, in Wortley v. Bakst,1 recently offered a reminder of the potential inconvenience of bankruptcy courts’ limited adjudicatory powers. The allegations in the case were salacious—that a law firm hired a bankruptcy judge’s fiancé in a scheme to improperly influence court rulings. But the Eleventh Circuit did not end up expressing any view of these doings because the appeal foundered on procedural grounds.

The alleged improprieties occurred in connection with a . . .

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Bankruptcy Courts Grapple with the “COVID-19 Discharge” – Appendix A

April 18, 2021

Bankruptcy Courts Grapple with the “COVID-19 Discharge” APPENDIX A 11 U.S.C. § 1328 Discharge (Text added by CAA, effective: December 27, 2020 and subject to one-year sunset, appears in italics.) (Mandatory and precatory directions to the court, critical to the statutory analysis in In re Ritter, appears in bold.) (a) Subject to subsection (d), as soon as practicable after completion...

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IRS Warns of Impersonation Email Scam; Reminds Taxpayers IRS Does Not Send Unsolicited Emails

August 25, 2019

On 8/22/19 the IRSe and its Security Summit partners warned taxpayers and tax professionals about a new IRS impersonation scam campaign spreading nationally on email. Remember: the IRS does not send unsolicited emails and never emails taxpayers about the status of refunds. The IRS detected this new scam as taxpayers began notifying [email protected] about unsolicited emails from IRS imposters. The...

Courts Continue to Fill in the Gaps on the Interplay of Bankruptcy and the FDCPA

March 7, 2021

By Chris Hawkins, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP (Birmingham, AL) The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published its debt collection final rule in the Federal Register on November 30, 2020, revamping the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) for the first time since its enactment in 1977. Despite written comments submitted by several industry groups requesting clarity in areas where...

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From the Editor – Avoidance

September 22, 2019

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired) Tax foreclosure sale avoided as preference. Affirming the District and Bankruptcy Courts, at 571 B.R. 662 and 588 B.R. 394, the Third Circuit held that the Chapter 13 debtors could avoid a pre-petition tax foreclosure sale as a preferential transfer. The township held a properly noticed tax sale at public auction, which resulted...

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Meet Another New Trustee

March 8, 2020

Rebecca A. (Becky) Herr was appointed Chapter 13 Standing Trustee for the District of Maryland on October 1, 2019 and maintains her offices in Annapolis. Ms. Herr’s appointment came on the heels of the retirement of Chapter 13 Standing Trustee Nancy Spencer-Grigsby. But Herr is no stranger to NACTT, The Academy, and the Chapter 13 Trustee community. So, let’s start...

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Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste: The Bankruptcy Amendments in the Consolidated Appropriations Acts of 2021

January 10, 2021

By Henry E. Hildebrand, III, Chapter 13 Trustee (Nashville, TN) Other than a recluse without any information of current events, we have been made fully aware of the fact that Congress was fashioning a second stimulus/COVID relief bill. The result is the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021; a massive bill with more than 5,300 pages governing a huge expanse of appropriations,...

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Honorable Kevin R. Anderson, U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Utah

April 7, 2019

Prior to his appointment as a bankruptcy judge for the District of Utah in September of 2015, Judge Anderson served for seventeen years as the Standing Chapter 13 Trustee for the District of Utah. During this time, he administered over 70,000 Chapter 13 cases. Judge Anderson was elected president of the National Association of Chapter 13 Trustees (NACTT), and he...

Tax Form 1099 Needs A Closer Look: Chances Are It’s Wrong

April 14, 2019

By William J. Purdy, III, Simmons & Purdy (Soquel, CA) Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers in the past few weeks have looked at or at least thought about, Form 1099-A or Form 1099-C documents they have received. Some arrived in the tax year a debt was allegedly cancelled. Others are issued by financial instructions many years after they should have...

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Critical Case Comment

May 2, 2021

By Henry E. Hildebrand, III, Chapter 13 Standing Trustee for the Middle District of Tennessee (Nashville) In calculating an above-median income debtor’s projected disposable income, the court may deduct from the debtor’s current monthly income only the expenses as listed in the IRS manual and not the debtor’s actual expenses. (Taylor) In re Rodriguez, 520 B.R. 94 (B.A.P. 9th Cir....

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Critical Case Comment – How Much Is It Worth – Then/Now?

Henry E. Hildebrand, III

January 22, 2023

On a trustee’s motion to modify a confirmed Chapter 13 plan, Court required debtor to commit funds to unsecured creditors based upon the previously undisclosed equity generated from post-petition sale of property. (Warren) In re Croniser, 2022 WL 3639413 (Bankr. E.D. N.C. August 23, 2022) Case Summary Duane Croniser filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 13 in January of 2020....

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