The debtor's pre-petition domestic support obligation remained non-dischargeable, so the former spouse's efforts to collect on that debt, including obtaining a contempt order and having him arrested for failing to purge the contempt, were not sanctionable. While the request for an arrest warrant was made without obtaining relief from the automatic stay, no action was taken against the debtor until after the automatic stay had expired, so his rights were not impaired.
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Opinions
United States Courts Opinions (USCOURTS) collection is a collaborative effort between the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC) to provide public access to opinions from selected United States appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts.
The District of Nebraska offers a database of opinions for the years 1997 to current, listed by year and judge. For a more detailed search, enter the keyword or case number in the search box above.
The court denied the defendant's motion for summary judgment, finding that numerous issues of fact existed on the elements of whether fraudulent transfers had occurred under Nebraska law and bankruptcy law.
A lawsuit removed from state court when the defendant filed bankruptcy should be transferred to the district court to permit it to conduct a jury trial of the matter. The plaintiffs withdrew their proofs of claim in the bankruptcy case, so they did not submit themselves to the bankruptcy court's jurisdiction or waive their right to a jury trial.
An unsecured junior lien on the debtor's residential real estate may be avoided after the debtor completes Chapter 13 plan payments. The case law in the Eighth Circuit, interpreting Nobelman, permits wholly unsecured liens to be stripped off.
The court overruled a creditor's objections to confirmation, ruling (1) the debtor's gross monthly income was not understated, and even if it was, it still was less than she proposed to pay to unsecured creditors; (2) the debtor's 20-year-old full-time out-of-state college student daughter was part of the household economic unit and should be included in household size when calculating expenses on the means test; (3) the debtor's disposable income was properly calculated by using the standard expenses on the means test, so reference to her Schedule J expenses was unnecessary; and (4) the debtor could deduct the full amount of the child support she receives because the evidence indicates the full amount is "reasonably necessary to be expended" for the child.
The debtor, a widower whose home was destroyed by fire, was entitled to claim a homestead exemption in the insurance proceeds from the loss. The residence would have qualified as a homestead had it not burned, so the court extended the exemption rights to what remained of the insurance proceeds.
On the trustee's complaint to recover allegedly fraudulent transfers made by the debtors in repaying investors in what essentially was a Ponzi scheme, the court denied summary judgment, allowing the transferees to put on evidence of their good faith as a defense under the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act.
The court granted summary judgment to the debtor in a revocation-of-discharge action brought by a creditor under § 727(a)(6). That section concerns the revocation of a discharge if a debtor refuses to obey a court order. In this case, the document at issue was a stipulation, not an order, so § 727(a)(6) was inapplicable. The plaintiff had standing to bring this action even though it wasn't a party to the stipulation because § 727(c)(1) permits any creditor, trustee or U.S. Trustee to object to discharge.
The fees and expenses approved for the counsel to the unsecured creditors' committee were administrative claims to be paid on the effective date of the debtor's plan. The debtor did not timely pay those claims, so committee counsel obtained a text order granting its motion for a final order awarding administrative fees and expenses that must be paid under the plan. Counsel then attempted to get a writ of execution on that "judgment." The court ordered a status hearing, and determined that the applicable factors weighed heavily in favor of a stay of execution, in light of possible irreparable harm to the debtor, substantial harm to other creditors, and the existence of assets protecting the value of counsel's interest pending payment.
An unsecured junior lien on the debtor's residential real estate may be avoided after the debtor completes Chapter 13 plan payments. The case law in the Eighth Circuit, interpreting Nobelman, permits wholly unsecured liens to be stripped off.