Jurisdiction: Bankr. N.D. Ohio

Date: July 3, 2025

 

Holding: The court held that the debtor’s Chapter 13 plan, which substantively complies with 11 U.S.C. § 1325(a)(5)(B)(i) by providing for lien retention and payment in full, is confirmable despite the creditor’s objection seeking additional lien retention language tied to a discharge that the debtor is ineligible to receive. The objection was overruled for failing to meet its burden of proof.

 

Facts: The debtor purchased a vehicle financed by the creditor within 910 days before filing bankruptcy. After receiving a discharge in a prior Chapter 7 case, the debtor filed the current Chapter 13 case, making her ineligible for discharge under § 1328(f)(1). The debtor proposed a Chapter 13 plan to pay the creditor over 60 months with amended payment terms and interest rates. The creditor objected to confirmation, arguing the plan must explicitly provide that the creditor retains its lien until payment in full under non-bankruptcy law or discharge under § 1328.

In Conte v. Hill, No. 24-10264, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a bankruptcy court’s order denying a Chapter 13 trustee’s motion to modify two confirmed plans to require turnover of post-confirmation personal injury settlement proceeds. The injuries in both cases occurred post-petition. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed that plan modification remains a discretionary determination for the bankruptcy court.

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On July 24, 2025, the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center (NCBRC) and the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Goldman Sachs Bank USA v. Brown, No. 25-1439. The case concerns whether consumer debtors’ claims under 11 U.S.C. § 362(k)—seeking damages for willful violations of the automatic stay—must be resolved through private arbitration, rather than in the bankruptcy courts tasked with enforcing that stay.

July 31, 2025 — The National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center (NCBRC) and the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) filed an amicus brief in the Second Circuit in In re Goebel, No. 25-103, in support of a Chapter 7 debtor seeking a determination that over $500,000 in tax debts owed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) were discharged in bankruptcy. The amici urge the court to reject the IRS’s efforts to restrict the bankruptcy court’s ability to determine tax dischargeability and to reaffirm the rights of debtors to obtain a timely and final ruling on the scope of their discharge.

July 31, 2025 — In Humphrey v. Christopher, No. 24-1854, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit sidestepped a key question in consumer bankruptcy law: whether a debtor’s defensive appellate rights are part of the bankruptcy estate and may be sold by the trustee. Instead, the court resolved the case on procedural grounds, holding that because the debtor failed to obtain a stay of the bankruptcy court’s sale order, review of that order was statutorily moot under 11 U.S.C. § 363(m). While declining to reach the merits, the decision underscores the critical importance of seeking a stay pending appeal when challenging sales of purported estate assets.

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