This page was last edited on 04/08/2002
New Cases For the Week of August 14, 2000 - August 18, 2000
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August 18, 2000 |
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Case |
Court |
Holding |
| In
re Nelson (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-n to view) |
8th Cir. BAP | A Chapter 7 trustee can be compelled to abandon real property that wholly lacks equity. The trustee's theory that the property can generate rental income is speculative, especially in light of the fact that the secured creditors whose liens encumber the property are entitled to any rental income form the property. |
| In
re Callier (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-n to view) |
8th Cir. BAP | Under Missouri law, a bankruptcy court errs in reforming a prepetition deed to a debtor so that the debtor and his nondebtor spouse owned the property as tenants by the entireties. The debtor's argument that the prepetition deed to the property (under which the debtor was the sole grantee) was the result of mutual mistake was unavailing, since there was no evidence that the grantor had not intended to convey to the debtor solely. Reformation for mutual mistake requires proof of the intentions of both parties to the transaction. |
August 17, 2000 |
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Case |
Court |
Holding |
| In re Carlson | 7th Cir. | For purposes of an appellate stay, there is no presumption that the loss of one's home is irreplaceable through damages. |
August 16, 2000 |
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|
Case |
Court |
Holding |
| In re Hull | 9th Cir. BAP | Chapter
13 eligibility (i.e., whether the debtor's liquidated, noncontingent
debts exceed the debt limits) is measured on the petition date.
If a trial on the merits is necessary to liquidate a claim, the claim does not count toward the Chapter 13 eligibility limits. Whether income is property of the estate has no bearing on whether that income is included in "projected disposable income" for Chapter 13 purposes. Under Washington community property law, each spouse has a presumptive half interest in property acquired during marriage (including wages). Consequently, a nondebtor spouse's wages are part of a Washington Chapter 13 debtor's "projected disposable income." A postpetition - preconfirmation postnuptial partition agreement is probably ineffective to insulate a nondebtor spouse's wages from "projected disposable income." |
| In
re Popkin & Stern (need Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in to view) |
8th Cir. | Under Missouri law, a debtor's prepetition disclaimer of an inheritance relates back such that the debtor is presumed to have predeceased the decedent. Accordingly, such a disclaimer cannot be a fraudulent transfer. Conceptually, the debtor never had an interest in the subject property. |
| In
re May (need Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in to view) |
8th Cir. BAP | A
Chapter 7 debtor's prepetition failure to file income tax returns was a
willful attempt to evade or defeat the subject taxes, thereby rendering
the tax liabilities nondischargeable under 11 USC 523(a)(1)(C).
A State's mere filing of an answer in a dischargeability proceeding may not be a waiver of sovereign immunity, even where the State's answer does not raise immunity as a defense and admits the dischargeability of the debt. |
| In re Dickerson | 11th Cir. | A
creditor whose lien on a Chapter 13 debtor's principal residence is
wholly unsecured has no secured claim and is not entitled to the
anti-modification protection of 11 USC 1322(b)(2).
The Court is bound by its prior decision in In re Tanner. However, if the Court was considering the issue without the burden of prior Circuit precedent it would rule differently (i.e., that a wholly unsecured creditor was entitled to anti-modification protection), since the application of the rule leads to an absurd result where a creditor with one cent of equity is protected from modification, but a creditor whose lien is one cent wholly unsecured is not. |
August 15, 2000 |
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|
Case |
Court |
Holding |
| In re Padilla | 9th Cir. | Unlike
Chapters 13 and 11, Chapter 7 contains no specific reference to
"good faith," and no implied good faith standard arises from
the "for cause" language of 11 USC 707(a). A
debtor who intentionally acquires consumer credit card debt in
anticipation of a Chapter 7 filing has not violated any specific
provision of Chapter 7, and dismissal of the debtor's case as a
"bad faith filing" under section 707(a) is improper.
A bankruptcy court lacks jurisdiction to enter a discharge in a case where there is a pending appeal of a dismissal order. The absence of a stay pending appeal is irrelevant since the bankruptcy court was wholly without power to enter a discharge after the appellate court acquired jurisdiction of the dismissal appeal. |
August 14, 2000 |
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|
Case |
Court |
Holding |
| In re Morris | 7th Cir. | For the purposes of 11 USC 523(a)(2)(B), a creditor does not reasonably rely on a financial statement submitted in connection with a means-based settlement when: (i) the settlement documents contain a provision allowing the creditor to rescind the settlement and enforce the entire original debt if the creditor discovers material misrepresentations in the financial statement and (ii) the creditor testifies that the reason the above-referenced provision was included in the settlement agreement was that the creditor had serious concerns about the debtor's financial veracity, yet the creditor conducted no investigation of the accuracy of the financial statement. |
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This page was last edited on 04/08/2002