The Court granted in part and denied in part the chapter 7 trustee’s motion for partial summary judgment, finding that the trustee’s designated “triggering creditor” held an allowed unsecured claim on the date of the debtor’s petition but that factual issues remained for trial regarding whether the trustee’s proffered “triggering creditor” had a viable pre-petition cause of action against the debtor that would enable the trustee to step into the creditor’s shoes under 11 U.S.C. § 544(b) for the purpose of pursuing an avoidance action to recover the debtor’s allegedly fraudulent transfers of real property for the benefit of the estate.
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Judge Ben T. Barry
Here, the Court conditionally overruled several objections to the debtor’s exemptions, finding that if the debtor’s plan was ultimately confirmed under 11 U.S.C. § 1191(b), property of the debtor’s estate would include eighty acres of property that the debtor had acquired after filing his chapter 13 petition but before converting his case to subchapter V of chapter 11. The Court also held that the eighty acres was rural rather than urban and found that the property qualified as the debtor’s homestead under Arkansas law.
In this chapter 13 case, the Court denied the debtor’s attorney’s additional application for compensation because the application was not filed until three days after the case was dismissed and property of the estate had revested in the debtor upon dismissal pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 349(b)(3).
Here, the court sustained a judgment creditor’s objection to the debtor’s homestead exemption based on the court’s finding that the debtor had not established the subject property as his homestead under Arkansas law because the debtor had not resided on the property while married or the head of a household. The court also denied the creditor’s motion for relief from stay because the creditor did not establish a prima facie case that there was cause to do so under 11 U.S.C. § 362(d)(1).
In this involuntary chapter 7 case, a creditor and the chapter 7 trustee objected to the debtor’s claim of Florida exemptions, alleging that Florida was not the debtor’s domicile during the relevant look-back periods under 11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(3)(A). The court overruled the objections, finding that the fact that the debtor intermittently resided in Tennessee, where he also owned or leased property, did not defeat the debtor’s claim that Florida was his domicile during the 910 days prior to the filing of his involuntary petition. In making its decision, the court looked to objective indicators that the debtor intended to make Florida, rather than Tennessee, his domicile, including: the debtor’s ownership of property and physical presence in Florida, Florida voter registration, Florida driver’s license, Florida utility payments, and application for a Florida homestead exemption.
The chapter 11 debtor filed an adversary proceeding against the Small Business Administration in which the debtor alleged that the SBA had violated 11 U.S.C. § 525(a) and the Administrative Procedure Act by adopting a rule that precluded debtors in bankruptcy from participating in the Paycheck Protection Program under the CARES Act. In this order, the court denied the debtor’s motion for a preliminary injunction because it found that the debtor was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its claims and had failed to show a threat of irreparable harm.
In this chapter 13 case, the debtor proposed in his plan to cure an arrearage owed to the creditor holding a mortgage on his residence. The mortgage creditor filed an objection to confirmation and a motion for relief from stay premised upon the contention that the residence was not property of the debtor’s bankruptcy estate because a mortgagee’s deed transferring the property to the mortgage creditor had been recorded at the conclusion of a statutory foreclosure sale six days before the debtor filed his petition. The debtor argued that the residence remained property of his estate because the foreclosure sale was defective due to the mortgage creditor’s failure to state the specific default for which foreclosure was made in its Notice of Default and Intent to Sell as required by Arkansas Code Annotated § 18-50-104(b)(4). Whether the notice must disclose the specific default that occurred under the terms of the mortgage agreement or, alternatively, merely state that a default occurred was an issue of first impression in Arkansas. The court certified the question to the Arkansas Supreme Court and it concluded that the statute requires disclosure of the specific default. Based upon the Arkansas Supreme Court’s answer to the certified question, this court held that the statutory foreclosure sale was subject to being set aside and, as a result, the debtor had an interest in the residence on the date he filed his bankruptcy petition. Because the foreclosure sale had not been conducted in accordance with applicable nonbankruptcy law, the debtor was entitled to cure the arrearage through his plan under 11 U.S.C. § 1322(c)(1). Accordingly, the court overruled the creditor’s objection to confirmation and denied its motion for relief from stay.
In this chapter 11 case, the court overruled a creditor’s objection to the debtor’s homestead exemption because the objection was untimely under Rule 4003(b)(1). However, because the court found that the debtor’s contradictory statements on Schedule C had created uncertainty regarding the amount of the debtor’s homestead exemption, the court granted the creditor’s motion to compel the debtor to amend the schedule pursuant to Rule 1009(a).
Here, the court overruled the chapter 7 trustee’s objection to the debtors’ amended exemptions. The trustee argued that the debtors should not be permitted to amend their schedules to elect state exemptions after having previously elected federal exemptions to which the trustee had not objected. However, the court found that Law v. Siegel and the unambiguous language of Rule 1009(a) authorized the debtors’ amendment to their exemptions. The court also found that the debtors’ mobile home was part of their homestead under Arkansas law. In addition, the court found that the creek that divided a portion of the acreage that the debtors claimed as their homestead was not navigable and therefore did not destroy the contiguous nature of the property.
In this case, the Court held that a state court judgment based on a jury verdict of negligence was nondischargeable under
§ 523(a)(6). The Court found that neither res judicata nor collateral estoppel precluded the Court from considering whether the injury was willful and malicious. However, the Court also found that the jury verdict did have a preclusive effect as to the amount of the debt owed by the debtor to the creditor.