Lewis Bros. Bakeries, Inc. v. Interstate Brands Corp. (In re Interstate Bakeries Corp.)
Steve McCroskey: Jacobs, I want to know absolutely everything that’s happened up ‘til now.
Jacobs: Well, let’s see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. . . .
-Airplane II: the Sequel
For a Throwback Thursday, we often go way back, to cases establishing first principles. This time, however, we travel not so far back, but still to a bygone era, the early 80’s. It was a time when the Bankruptcy Code was still new, and judges could interpret it without the weight of much practice and precedent. Often, these cases present the starting point for familiar interpretations that continued to develop in later years, but other times it’s surprising to see a new interpretive opening that, years later, is not thoroughly explored.
In Crawford v. LVNV Funding, LLC, No. 13-12389 (July 10, 2014), the Eleventh Circuit held that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) prohibits filing a proof of claim on a time-barred debt in bankruptcy court, where the party attempting to collect knows the debt is time barred. The appellate court observed that a “deluge has swept through U.S. bankruptcy courts” of consumer debt buyers attempting to collect expired debts from debtors in Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
Lenders should be aware of a recent Bankruptcy Court decision that barred a lender from obtaining certain costs when it did not comply with a notice requirement in a mortgage.
On June 5, 2014 the United States Bankruptcy Court in In re Demers, BR 13-11539, 2014 WL 2620961 (Bankr. D.R.I. June 5, 2014) ruled that it is inequitable to shift the costs of a creditor’s error in proceeding with the foreclosure process to the debtor when the creditor sent an unspecific and unclear notice and consequently was not entitled to proceed.
The July 10, 2014 opinion by the U.S Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (Georgia, Florida, and Alabama) in Crawford v. LVNV Funding, LLC held that the act of filing a proof of claim on a time-barred debt is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). This decision could have an impact on providers attempting to work and collect old patient debts.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (the “Eleventh Circuit”) has become the first circuit court to extend sections 1692e and 1692f of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) to proofs of claim filed in a bankruptcy case, ruling that a debt collector is prohibited from filing a proof of claim on debt that is barred by the applicable state statute of limitation. In Crawford v. LVNV Funding, LLC, et al.
On June 12, 2014, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Inherited IRAs are not exempt in bankruptcy.
The United States Supreme Court, in the case of Clark v. Rameker, ruled that Inherited IRAs enjoy no special protection in bankruptcy, unlike IRAs created and funded by the debtor. Even though the Bankruptcy Code exempts qualified retirement plans, IRAs and similar "retirement funds," the Court decided that this bankruptcy exemption for retirement funds does not extend to an Inherited IRA.
As we noted last month, the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v. Arkison, Case No. 12-1200, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), affirmed the constitutional authority of bankruptcy courts to issue proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law to federal district courts in connection with “Stern claims”.
A chapter 7 trustee successfully sought to avoid a mortgage using his “strong arm” powers on the basis that the mortgage was not properly acknowledged. Once again a mortgagee paid dearly for sloppy execution of a document.