A new day is coming to high debt borrowers seeking to file Chapter 13 but confounded by the debt limits imposed by 11 U.S.C. § 109(e). Although debt limits have been increasing since the effective date of the Code in 1979, consumer debts have been increasing at a far more rapid rate. Starting in 2009, when the housing crisis first...

Chapter 13 debtor’s profligate, pre-petition spending and post-petition lack of candor, demonstrated that the plan was not proposed in good faith and the petition was not filed in good faith. (Frank) In re Ames, 2022 WL 2195469 (Bankr. E.D. Pa. June 17, 2022) Case Summary In April of 2018, after 10 years of marriage, Guy Ames initiated a divorce complaint...

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired) Attorney sanctioned for filing identical schedules in two cases without updating financial information. The same attorney represented a debtor in two cases filed sixteen months apart, but the attorney filed essentially identical schedules in both cases, violating Rule 9011 by failing to make reasonable inquiry before filing the second case. The schedules in...

By Robert B. Branson and Tammy Branson, Branson Law PLLC (Orlando, FL) Congress’ goal of bankruptcy is for the honest debtor to get a fresh start. Since most federally guaranteed student loans are nondischargeable, the current outcome is a “false start” instead of a fresh start. Resolving a $1.5 trillion student loan crisis is problematic in that the caselaw was...

By Gretchen D. Holland, Standing Chapter 13 Trustee for the Greenville/Spartanburg Division of South Carolina The Bankruptcy Code does not – and thus a trustee cannot – require a debtor to treat nondischargeable student loan debts in a separate class from other general unsecured claims under § 1322(b)(1), even when including them all in the same pool will result in...

Congratulations to all but specifically the two bankruptcy courts with recognized recipients!

By Henry E. Hildebrand, III, Chapter 13 Standing Trustee for the Middle District of Tennessee (Nashville) A Non-Governmental Private Student Loan Obligation is not always excepted from discharge by § 523(a)(8). (Holmes) McDaniel v. Navient Solutions, LLC, 2020 WL 5104560 (August 31, 2020) Case Summary Bryon and Laura McDaniel filed a Chapter 13 petition in 2009. They acknowledged that, among...

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired) Only bankruptcy court issuing discharge order can enforce injunction. The Fifth Circuit held that only the bankruptcy court issuing a discharge order has authority to enforce the discharge injunction. The opinion reviews pre-2005 Code provisions and current 28 U.S.C. § 1963, citing other Circuits that “have insisted on a return to the bankruptcy...

By Herbert L. Beskin, Chapter 13 Trustee for the Western District of Virginia (Charlottesville) Let’s take the following set of facts and see how it plays out in the labyrinthian world of hardship discharge of student loan debt. The case is In re Lozada (Lozada v. Educational Credit Management Corporation), 594 B.R. 212 (Bankr. S.D. N.Y. 2018). Years ago (30...

By Hon. Brian Lynch, United States Bankruptcy Judge, Western District of Washington, Tacoma Division When the Supreme Court issued United Student Aid Funds, Inc. v. Espinosa1 on March 23, 2010, commentators were perplexed.2 On the one hand, the Court upheld the 9th Circuit’s ruling allowing a hardship discharge of student loans in a chapter 13 plan. The Court held that...