In re Vandyke (Case No. 05-75858) 06/08/2006
The court granted the Chapter 13 Trustee's motion to dismiss because the Debtor failed to comply with an order to which he consented, requiring that he be current on all plan payments.
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The court granted the Chapter 13 Trustee's motion to dismiss because the Debtor failed to comply with an order to which he consented, requiring that he be current on all plan payments.
The court held that the Debtors' case should not be dismissed under 11 U.S.C. § 707(b) for substantial abuse because a Chapter 13 plan would provide a relatively modest distribution to general unsecured creditors, a third of the Debtors' general unsecured debt was due to medical bills, and the Debtors had no substantial credit card obligations.
Objection to debtor's motion to add a creditor to his bankruptcy schedules sustained as the creditor's claim was a post-petition obligation not affected by the discharge order.
The Court approved the Chapter 7 Trustee's fee application after conducting the lodestar analysis.
The Court declined to dismiss the Chapter 7 case under section 707(b) for substantial abuse, despite the fact that the Debtor had disposable income, after analyzing the factors outlined in Green v. Staples (In re Green), 934 F.2d 568 (4th Cir. 1991).
The Court determined that when a petition is filed after the dismissal of a prior case that was pending within one year, the language in Section 362(c)(3)(A) terminates the stay only with respect to pre-petition action taken against the Debtor. Where no such pre-petition actions were taken, it was not necessary to continue the stay under 362(c)(3)(B).
The court remanded a state court action that was initiated after the Chapter 7 case was closed and the Debtor received a discharge, because the Debtor failed to comply with Rule 9027(a)(3) (requiring the filing of Notice of Removal no later than 30 days after a claim or cause of action is asserted in another court).
The Court denied a motion for summary judgment in favor of creditors that purchased real property of the estate, where the creditors argued that purchasing the real property extinguished liability to the estate for unpaid rent.
The Plaintiff filed a Complaint to determine that its claim was excepted from discharge under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6). Pursuant to Section 523(a)(6), debts for willful and malicious injury by the debtor to the property or person of another are nondischargeable. Under Kawaauhau v. Geiger, 523 U.S. 57 (1998), in order to satisfy the requirements of Section 523(a)(6), a plaintiff must plead and prove that the debtor engaged in acts that caused an injury to the plaintiff, and (a) that the debtor acted willfully, with actual intent, objective or subjective, to cause injury to the plaintiff, where the harm was not merely the result of negligent or reckless acts of the debtor, and (b) that the debtor acted with malice. Under this standard, the Plaintiff in this case failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the debtor acted with actual objective or subjective intent to cause injury to the Plaintiff when the debtor liquidated the collateral and spent half of the cash receipts from the sale on business operations.
The court denied the Debtors' motion to reopen their Chapter 7 bankruptcy case and file an adversary proceeding to avoid judgment liens recorded against their real property within ninety days of the original filing, because the Debtors did not claim that the liens impaired their exempt property. The court also highlighted its previous holding that such a motion requires payment of the standard reopening fee.