Where a stipulation of a settlement of an objection to confirmation provided that a creditor’s claim would be “excepted from discharge pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6)”, the stipulation would not prevent the discharge of the claim based upon a breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference with business relations, unfair competition, defamation, and conversion which resulted in a state jury...

By Henry E. Hildebrand, III, Chapter 13 Standing Trustee for the Middle District of Tennessee (Nashville) Where a confirmation order of a debtor’s Chapter 12 plan specifically provided for payments to a creditor and the Chapter 12 trustee had supported confirmation of the plan, the trustee would be precluded from seeking to disallow a late-filed claim. Following the plan, the...

It is incumbent upon nonbankruptcy attorneys, including personal injury attorneys, to verify on PACER that their client is not a debtor and that the cause of action as to which they represent their client is not property of the estate; failure to obtain approval of the bankruptcy court for representing a debtor or settlement of a personal injury action is...

By Karin N. Amyx, Staff Attorney to Chapter 13 Trustee Carl Davis (Wichita, KS) Trustees possess a variety of sensitive information that could be useful to litigants in contract disputes, divorce and child custody matters, insurance litigation or criminal prosecution. Additionally, debtors, creditors or third parties may be interested in the trustee’s internal operating procedures or legal position on disputes...

Who knew 20 years ago how apparently hard it is to account for money paid to you? Even if accounting for money was your business? Today’s raft of mortgage accounting issues were not ones I foresaw when I became a bankruptcy lawyer.Yet every day we encounter cases where the foreclosure notice follows the “all current” filing at the close of...

By Lawrence R. Ahern, III, Brown & Ahern (Nashville, TN) Introduction Since April 1, 2020, many unemployed people in the United States have begun to receive "a recovery benefit" in the amount of $1,200.1 These payments, under the CARES Act2 stimulus program, were intended to provide some relief to suffering Americans. However, the most financially distressed Americans, perhaps with existing,...

Traps and grey areas abound when one spouse files bankruptcy during or after a divorce. Inattention by the non-filing spouse can result in the bankruptcy discharge of spousal claims that might actually be nondischargeable. One of those traps involves the differing treatment in bankruptcy of debts to a former spouse incurred in the course of a divorce (Bankruptcy Code §523(a)15))...

By Cathy Moran, Esq. (Redwood City, CA) Because its treatment varies so, we need to be asking more pointed questions of clients about both insurance policies and the debtor as beneficiary. Unmatured life insurance Starting with exemptions, §522(d)(7) makes an unmatured life insurance policy exempt without limit. So, the insurance element of a policy owned by the debtor is exempt...

By Academy Staff On October 1, 2020, Jonathan W. DeLoach was appointed as a Chapter 13 Standing Trustee for the Middle District of Georgia. He inherited a razor-sharp trusteeship vacated by retiring Kristin Hurst. Jon, as he prefers to be called, received his Bachelor of Arts in History in 1988 from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a National...

By John P. Gustafson, United States Bankruptcy Judge, Northern District of Ohio, Western Division A. Property Acquired After The Filing Of The Chapter 13 Case: The Different Approaches. 1. Property Acquired Post-Petition vs. Property “Vesting In The Debtor”. Click here for Part 2 The broad issue of what becomes property of the Chapter 13 estate post-petition involves consideration of two...