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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Rebecca Rogers Garcia

February 10, 2019

Rebecca Rogers Garcia was a staff attorney for Mary B. Grossman, the Chapter 13 Trustee in Milwaukee from 2002 until November 2014. Prior to her employment with the Chapter 13 Trustee; she represented debtors in consumer cases. Ms. Garcia is on the board of the Bankruptcy, Insolvency and Creditors Rights Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin and a member...

Federal District Court Affirms Decision that Residential Loan Modification Does Not Alter Lien Priority in Pennsylvania

March 15, 2020

By Scott Waterman, Standing Chapter 13 Trustee Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Reading) Citing Pennsylvania law, a Federal District Court in In re Hamilton (Hamilton v. Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency), ___ B.R. ____ (E.D. Pa. 2020) refused to apply the equitable subordination doctrine to reorder the priority of mortgages after the first mortgage lender granted the debtors a loan modification prior...

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Bankrupt Attorney Cannot Discharge State Court Sanctions

Nicole P. Novak

September 11, 2022

In a recent opinion, the 9th Circuit BAP affirmed a bankruptcy judge’s decision that sanctions order by a state court were nondischargeable under § 523(a)(6)i and that the state court proceeding precluded litigating the issue in bankruptcy.ii The sanctions originate from a California doctor’s defamation suit against two former patients. The Doctor initiated the action against two women who wrote...

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Eleventh Circuit Adopts the Path of Leased Resistance in Chapter 13

August 2, 2020

By Chris Hawkins, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP (Birmingham, AL) The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently issued an opinion that may have far-reaching procedural implications for debtors and trustees in Chapter 13 cases. In Microf LLC v. Cumbess, the court articulated multiple canons of statutory interpretation in holding that a chapter 13 debtor’s proposal to...

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Critical Case Comment – But It’s a GOLF CART!

Henry E. Hildebrand, III

November 20, 2022

A golf cart is a motor vehicle and may be exempted by a Chapter 7 debtor under state law. (Loyd) In re Smith, 2022 WL 3023209 (Bankr. W.D. Okla. July 28, 2022) Case Summary Bobby Smith filed a Chapter 7 petition and listed his golf cart as an exempt asset under Oklahoma law because it was a “motor vehicle.” The...

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Creditors’ Rights and Debtors’ Protections at the Intersection of Consumer Bankruptcy and UCC Article 9 – Part 3

September 13, 2020

By Lawrence R. Ahern III, Brown & Ahern (Nashville, TN) PART III – DELAYED PERFECTION OF SECURITY INTERESTS Introduction Current circumstances (a pandemic and dire economic conditions) portend an onslaught of bankruptcy filings. In the consumer bankruptcy field, trustees and debtors' counsel often are uncomfortable with the rules in Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). In this space,...

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Post-Petition Causes of Action, Inheritances and Windfalls Are Property of the Estate and Must Be Reported to the Trustee – Part 4 of 5

August 4, 2019

By John P. Gustafson, United States Bankruptcy Judge, Northern District of Ohio, Western Division Click here for Part 1 Click here for Part 2

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Critical Case Comment – Hell Hath No Fury, Until It Meets the S.D. of PA

Henry E. Hildebrand, III

July 31, 2022

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...

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These Summer Activities Can Affect Next Year’s Tax Returns

August 11, 2019

Summertime activities often affect the tax returns people file the following year. Here are some things taxpayers do during the summer along with tips they should consider now: Getting married. Newlyweds should report any name change to the Social Security Administration. They should also report an address change to the United States Postal Service, their employers, and the IRS. This...

Critical Case Comment

June 27, 2021

By Henry E. Hildebrand, III, Chapter 13 Standing Trustee (Nashville, TN) It constitutes an unfair discrimination, violative of 11 U.S.C. § 1322(b)(1), for a Chapter 13 plan which would pay more to a student loan than to the remaining general unsecured creditors. (Somers) In re Kane, 603 B.R. 491 (Bankr. C.D. Kan. June 18, 2019) Case Summary Ronald Kane filed...

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