Br Chapter 3

Front 1

3-4: Can D still voluntarily pay credit card debts? 524 (f)?

Back 1

Yes, debtor may repay creditors to save face.

Front 2

3-5: Should a wife with 5 minor children to support and a mountain of debt file for chapter 7 BR when her husband has left her, and when they both had filed a chapter 7 joint petition five years ago, and had recevied a discharge?

Back 2

· If you’re going to come to acourt and ask for relief, better come with clean hands. 727(a)(8)àcourtshall grant discharge unless debtor has been granted a discharge under 727 in acase commenced within 8 years of the date of filing of the petition. · Mary has been granted a previousChapter 7 discharge 5 years ago. At some point after that, Mary receivesChapter 7 discharge. What’s dispositive is when you file the case, not when youreceive the discharge. Mary filed for bankruptcy earlier than 8 years. If shewas ineligible, could try to file under another chapter.

Front 3

Green

Back 3

· Involves an attempt by the debtorto seek a determination from student loan debt. Effect of discharge willoperate as an injunction with respect to such debt. · Green claimed undue hardship andcouldn’t afford an attorney, so went pro se· No definition for undue hardshipin the bankruptcy code. Case law says undue hardship = debtor has todemonstrate (1) cannot maintain, based on current income and expenses, aminimum standard of living for herself and her dependents if forced to repayher obligations (2) additional circumstances exist indicating that her state ofaffairs is likely to persist for a significant portion of the repayment periodof the student loans (3) she has made good faith efforts to repay the loans· Green failed to introduceevidence she had been so impacted, and only has produced 20 year old medicalrecords

Front 4

3-6

State s requires licensing of operators of driver training school. D has such a license and operates a driver training school. D has consulted your firm about his filing for bankruptcy to discharge debts, most of which arose from D's operation of his driver training school. If D files for BR and receives a DC, can State S revoke D's license to operate a driver training school? See:525 (a)

Back 4

· 525(a) covers actions by a gov’tunit (here, the state)· A gov’t unit may not deny alicense to a person that is or has been a debtor under title 11 (the bankruptcycode) solely because such debtor has been a debtor before this title. · A state may not deny a license toa person who has been a debtor under the bankruptcy code solely because thatperson has been insolvent, etc. · The reason why they are invokingthe license is what matters. If revoking solely because of one of the threereasons listed in this section, then that is impermissible. If you are revokingfor a reason other than this or if you’re revoking for one of the reasons andan additional reason not here, than not doing it for one of these reasons.· Would need to know why State S isrevoking. · State S is probably going torevoke the license and D will say that is discriminatory practice and file suitunder 525. Would have to prove this.

Front 5

3-7:D files for BR and receives a DC. D applies for a job with your client, T as a cashier. T wants to know if it can tell D that T has decided to hire someone other than D because of D's BR? See: 525 (b) and consider In Re Burnett.

Back 5

· 525(b). T is a private employer,so falls under the class who is prohibited from engaging in certain kinds ofactions. · Denying employment does not fallwithin the phrase because of canons of statutory interpretation. Phase is “noprivate employer may terminate the employment of, or discriminate with respectto employment against an individual who is or has been a debtor under thistitle, a debtor or bankrupt under the bankruptcy act”· We would have to say Congressknows that kind of discriminated and included it in (a) and not in (b) onpurpose.· If T finds out after hiring Dthat D had filed for bankruptcy and then chose to fire D solely on D’s statusas a debtor under the bankruptcy code then that is prohibited.

Front 6

E is a teller at B Bank. Recently, E, who has been an outstanding employee, had to file for relief under Chapter 7 because of out of control CC debt. M, who is the manager of B, tells M, B's lawyer, that several customers, upon learning about E's BR, have come to you to complain. They are worried about engaging in financial transXs with someone like E. Can M let him go?

Back 6

· Bank is a private employer so525(b). Tell M that they would have to have HR people document accurately andexplain. If doing for reasons that don’t fall in the category and it’sdocumented well, then should not be liable.

Front 7

2nd goal of BR:

Back 7

-treat similarly situated creditors equally.

-Section 726 tells us how to distribute property of the debtor's estate in a chapter 7 suit. Creditors are arranged in a hierarchy.

Front 8

Chapters 1,3 and 5 of the code all apply in a case under:

Back 8

Chapters 7, 11, 12 and 13.

Front 9

Property of the Estate:

Back 9

-§541:consists of the property which will be liquidated and used to pay creditors

-Debtor has the incentive to say that something is not Property of the Estate

-If something is Property of the Estate, debtor has to give it up or some income equal to it.

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Front 10

Applying 541 (a) (1) requires answering three questions:

Back 10

1)Is the item in question "property" for purposes of section 541 (a) (1)?

2)If so, what is the debtors interest in that property? Note that section 541 (a) (1) reaches the debtor's "interest in property" rather than simply the debtor's property.

3)Did the debtor have this interest in the property as of the time of the commencement of the BR case (the filing of the petition)?

-Ask "how non-BR law would think about the thing. If property, then map it onto the Fed. BR code."However, Fed BR court should not blindly follow non-BR court labels.

-All 541 does is create an estate, it doesn't tell you what you can do with the property, whether you can sell it, etc. It just lists what might be in the state. Define state property broadly.

-In general, expectancies in things are not property (e.g. if your parents tell you that they will give you a car for your birthday next month, and you file for BR today, and then you get the car, the car will not be property of the estate

-A(6) expands the concept of property of the estate. Earnings from the debtor from services performed after filing for BR are not estate property.