The court denied the administrative expense applications filed by the debtor's equity interest holders. The applicants were unable to establish that their involvement in the case provided a "substantial contribution" to the estate as required by § 503(b)(3)(D). The equitable "common fund" doctrine did not provide a remedy because the movants did not demonstrate any "dominating reasons of justice" to invoke it.

The court overruled debtors' objection to the IRS's claim for tax penalties related to failure to timely file returns. Neither poor health nor debtors' belief that they didn't need to file returns constituted "good cause" for not filing the returns.

A deed of trust executed by two unmarried owners in joint tenancy was valid, by its terms, to encumber the interests of both owners even though the document identified only one owner as the "borrower" because the promissory note was in his name only.

The debtor's unemployment insurance taxes, incurred pre-petition but due post-petition, are not an administrative expense. Because the return was "last due after three years before" the petition date, it is an eighth-priority unsecured claim.

A plethora of factual and legal issues precluded a decision on the debtors' motion for sanctions for violation of the automatic stay with regard to a post-petition state-court lawsuit and temporary injunction entered against the debtors.

The findings underlying judgments entered against the debtor by a Florida court awarding damages to the plaintiffs for conversion and civil theft were sufficient to except those debts from discharge under the larceny prong of § 523(a)(4).

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.

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 denied summary judgment because fact questions existed as to whether the debtors transferred or concealed property, failed to explain a loss of assets, or made false representations when they withdrew money on a home equity line of credit.

The court denied the plaintiff's motion for default judgment, ruling that, particularly where both parties are unrepresented by counsel, fundamental fairness requires the matter to be set for trial so the court can ascertain whether the elements of the cause of action have been sufficiently established.