Catlano
v. IRS
(DBN Subscription Required) |
9th Cir. |
An
order granting relief from the automatic stay does not always
constitute an abandonment of property under bankruptcy law.
Abandonment requires formal notice and a hearing. The
formalities are important because abandonment is revocable
only in very limited circumstances, such as "where the
trustee is given incomplete or false information of the asset
by the debtor, thereby foregoing a proper investigation of the
asset. When a bankruptcy court lifts, or modifies, the
automatic stay, it merely removes or modifies the injunction
prohibiting collection actions against the debtor or the
debtor's property. Although the property may pass from the
control of the estate, that does not mean that the estate's
interest in the property is extinguished. The court did
not err in finding that the tex effect of a foreclosure
occuring after relief from stay feel on the estate rather than
the indivdiual debtor, since there had been no abandonment of
the encumbered property to the debtor. |
In
re McAlpin
(DBN Subscription Required) |
8th Cir. |
The
bankruptcy court erred in entering a postdischarge order
in a Chapter 13 case holding that certain student loan
collection costs were excessive. The Court;s
jurisdiction depends on the existence of a conceivable effect
on the bankruptcy estate, and since the debtor had already
completed his plan and obtained a discharge, no such effect
was present. |
In
re Zepecki
(DBN Subscription Required) |
8th Cir. |
To
the extent prepetition attorney's fees exceed the reasonable
value of the legal services provided, the bankruptcy court may
order the return of attorney's fees paid within one year prior
to the date that a debtor files a bankruptcy petition for fees
related to legal services performed in connection with or in
contemplation of bankruptcy proceedings. ''In contemplation
of" generally denotes that the impelling cause of the
transaction is influenced by the possibility or imminence of a
bankruptcy proceeding. The bankruptcy court did not err
in reviewing and ordering disgorgement of attorneys' fees paid
within four months of bankruptcy in connection with a tax free
exchange involving the debtor's largest asset that the court
found was was a sham and was performed in an effort to
prevent the asset from becoming property of the bankruptcy
estate. |
In
re Continental Airlines
(DBN Subscription Required) |
3rd Cir. |
A
union creditor violated the discharge injunction, and could be
sanctioned, for commencing a postconfirmation action seeking
damages for violation of a collective bargaining agreement
that had not been assumed or rejected by the
debtor. Although the agreement had not been assumed or
rejected, the union's rights under the agreement had been
extensively and finally litigated during the bankruptcy case,
and the relief sought in the postconfirmation action was the
same relief denied in the bankruptcy case. |
| Lassiter
v. IRS |
Tax
Court |
Secs.
172(b)(1) and 1398(i), I.R.C., permit the deduction of NOLs on
a debtor's joint return when the losses arose prior to and
during the husband's Chapter 11 case, the husband died during
the case, and the case proceeded to conclusion after his death
pursuant to Fed. R. Bankr. P. 1016. |
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