The Brunner Student Loan Hardship Test: Alive and Well in The Big Apple

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 to be exact) you received a law degree, but you failed the bar exam the first time and weren’t willing to go through that ordeal again. So you pursued a career in the . . .

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The Effect of “Success” (or the Lack of It) on Attorneys’ Fees Part 2: In re Village Apothecary, Inc.

Lawrence R. Ahern, III

October 2, 2022

Introduction In In re Village Apothecary, Inc.,1 the Sixth Circuit recently cut an attorney's fee by half, where the services were not successful. The panel held that the results obtained (or, actually, the lack of results) justified the dramatic reduction of the fees of attorneys for a Chapter 7 trustee. In Part 1, we looked at . . . It...

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From the Editor – Curing Default

October 27, 2019

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired) Debtor could cure default beyond 60 months. Agreeing with In re Klaas, 858 F.3d 820 (3d Cir. 2017), bankruptcy court had discretion to permit debtors to cure plan default, allowing a reasonable grace period beyond the 60 months of confirmed plan. Dismissal of the case for plan default was not required under §...

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341s: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Brandi Manuel Jolley

November 19, 2023

“The chief obstacle we have had since starting Zoom revolves around the lack of high-speed internet in our division.”

Lenders Can’t Hide from Consequences of Misapplication of Mortgage Payments

Cathy Moran

March 6, 2022

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...

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Practice Pointers for Arguing Motions

December 6, 2020

By William Sawyer, Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Middle District of Alabama (Montgomery) (Used with permission. Court News and Views, Volume 18, October 2020) Lawyers who practice regularly in bankruptcy court invariably make many appearances at motion dockets. This article provides practice pointers to lawyers who do not practice often in this Court to familiarize them with our procedures...

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

April 18, 2021

Bankruptcy Courts Grapple with the “COVID-19 Discharge” APPENDIX B Side-by-Side Comparison of 11 U.S.C. § 1328(b)-(i) and 11 U.S.C. § 1141(d)(5)(B)-(C) 11 U.S.C. § 1328(b)-(i) Discharge 11 U.S.C. § 1141(d)(5)(B)-(C) Effect of Confirmation (b) Subject to subsection (d), at any time after the confirmation of the plan and after notice and a hearing, the court may grant a discharge ....

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Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Student Loans and Act Introduced by Senators Durbin and Cornyn

August 8, 2021

by William Houston Brown, Adviser, Academy for Consumer Bankruptcy Education, Inc. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on August 3, 2021, on student loans, and during the Committee hearing, Senator Durbin, Chair of the Committee, stated that he would be introducing an Act to amend student loan discharge provisions in the Bankruptcy Code. That Act was subsequently introduced by...

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From the Editor – Confirmation

March 8, 2020

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired) Plan did not properly address 910 creditor’s liens. Finding that the plan did not satisfy one of the three options for addressing a secured claim under § 1325(a)(5), specifically failing to provide for the 910 creditor’s retention of lien, the Panel observed that in response to the creditor’s objection to confirmation, the debtors...

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Critical Case Comment–Be Careful What You Stipulate

Henry E. Hildebrand, III

August 14, 2022

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...

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List It or Lose It: When Actual Knowledge Isn’t Enough

June 20, 2021

By Cathy Moran, Esq., (Redwood City, CA) To actually effect abandonment of unadministered assets in a bankruptcy case, the asset in question must appear on Schedule A/B. That’s the hard teaching of Stevens v. Whitmore from the 9th Circuit BAP. A passing reference to an asset in the SOFA isn’t sufficient. Neither was the fact the trustee explicitly knew about...

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