Funds deposited with the Chapter 13 trustee are to be returned to the debtor upon dismissal of the case, but those funds are subject to the remedies of creditors under state or federal law, so they may be attached, levied, or garnished while in the trustee's possession upon the termination of the automatic stay.

The court permitted the debtor to claim a personal property exemption in wages garnished within the 90 days before bankruptcy filing because the debtor would have standing to avoid the transfer of exempt property, which the wages would have been, once in the debtor's possession, had they not been garnished.

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.

In this action brought by the Chapter 7 trustee to avoid and recover a pre-petition transfer of funds from the debtors to their residential landlord as a preference, the court denied the trustee's motion for summary judgment. While the landlord's § 365(p) argument regarding the assumption of a personal property lease was inapplicable here, the affirmative defenses in the preference statute were viable.

The bankruptcy court denied the debtors' motion to reopen their Chapter 7 bankruptcy case to list a judgment creditor and determine the dischargeability of that debt. Under § 523(a)(3), the state court that issued the judgment has concurrent jurisdiction to determine the debt's dischargeability because discharge is an affirmative defense, so there is no reason to have the bankruptcy court involved as well.

The court granted an unsecured creditor's motion for relief from previous orders that had altered the terms of the debtor's confirmed Chapter 11 plan without proper notice or opportunity to object. The debtor's proposal to use proceeds earmarked in the plan for unsecured creditors to instead pay administrative expense claims, with no formal notice to the unsecured creditors and without fully advising the court that the proposal would modify the plan, should not have been permitted.

The court overruled the debtor's objection to the lender's claims on two grounds: (1) judicial estoppel does not bar a creditor from amending its claim to correct the calculation of the balance due on the petition date, and (2) long-standing legal authority allows a creditor to assert a claim for the full amount of the debt owed, without deducting amounts recovered from third parties. "The confirmed plan is not a recovery or payment in full. Instead, it is a promise to pay.

The debtor was a homebuilder. The debtor's lender held a deed of trust lien on certain real estate and improvements owned by the debtor. A construction lien was subsequently filed against the same property for work performed. When the home sold, the court ruled that the deed of trust lien had priority over the construction lien, so the lender was entitled to the distribution of the sale proceeds.

The debtors' president signed a guaranty on a loan made to the debtors. He filed a proof of claim based on subrogation rights for the amount he paid on the guaranty. Available funds were insufficient to pay in full his claim and the lien claims of other creditors. In overruling the objections of the lien creditors, the court ruled that the claim for equitable subrogation was valid and had not been waived or subordinated by language in the guaranty or in a composition agreement.

In issuing a written opinion to deny the plaintiffs' motion for default judgment, the court seeks to provide guidance to practitioners with regard to unambiguously identifying entity defendants and accomplishing effective service of process. A defendant should be described by its proper name, type of entity, and state of organization so the appropriate party is readily identifiable. Specific identification also helps in determining how to properly serve the defendant under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4 and Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 7004.