The Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, recently dismissed a mortgagee’s “breach of mortgage contract” action as an impermissible second refiling following prior voluntary dismissals of a 2011 foreclosure complaint and 2013 action for breach of the promissory note based upon the same note and mortgage.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that, where husband and wife debtors fraudulently transferred assets, the creditor was entitled to the full sum the creditor would have recovered and was not limited to the amount of the collateralized debt.

In so ruling, the Ninth Circuit reversed a bankruptcy court and trial court judgment in the creditor’s favor that the debt was non-dischargeable due to the debtor’s fraud, but improperly limiting the non-dischargeable debt to only the collateralized amount.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida recently held that a bankruptcy debtor’s Chapter 11 proceeding should not be dismissed as filed in bad faith to delay or avoid foreclosure, but could not confirm the debtor’s proposed plan to lease its commercial property asset to a business that generates income from medical marijuana.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently held that “escrow funds, insurance proceeds, or miscellaneous proceeds” are protected by the anti-modification provisions for Chapter 13 bankruptcies as “incidental property” under the definition of “debtor’s principal residence” in the federal Bankruptcy Code.

Filing a proof of claim with a bankruptcy court representing a debt subject to an expired state law limitations period does not violate the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) under an opinion released yesterday from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Under the ruling, in Owens v. LVNV, the Seventh Circuit joins the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in rejecting the Eleventh Circuit’s holding under Crawford v. LVNV that such proofs of claim violate the FDCPA.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida recently denied a mortgagee's motion to reopen a Chapter 7 case to compel the surrender of real property, citing a five-year delay in filing the motion.

In so ruling, the Court agreed with an earlier ruling from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida (In re Plummer, 513 B.R. 135 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2014)), distinguishing "surrender" from "foreclosure," and holding that a creditor cannot use the Bankruptcy Code to circumvent the obligations imposed by state law. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held, in a case of first impression, that a creditor violates the bankruptcy discharge injunction by filing a proof of claim on a debt that was previously discharged in another bankruptcy proceeding.

A copy of the opinion is available at: Link to Opinion.

The last year and a half was a time to be remembered in bankruptcy law. It started with an eye on increasing the ability of small businesses to utilize the Chapter 11 process in a more efficient and less expensive way, which led to a record number of commercial filings, a reduction in consumer filings, and a test of the bankruptcy system. What will the second half of 2021 look like?

The U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Eighth Circuit recently affirmed a bankruptcy court’s holding that the contemporaneous exchange for new value defense to a preference action under § 547(c) applied to a creditor bank that released its liens for less than full payment.

In so ruling, the Eighth Circuit BAP held that the bankruptcy trustee could not recover two of the three payments that the debtor made to the bank during the 90-day pre-petition preference period.

In an agricultural lien contest between three creditors of a bankrupt commercial farm, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently affirmed the trial court’s award of summary judgment in favor of a bank that provided debtor-in-possession financing, holding that the locale of the farm products determined the applicable lien law and that bank’s lien was superior to the liens of two nurseries that supplied trees and shrubs because the latter were either unperfected or unenforceable.