What better way to wake Plan Proponent from a seven (!) month slumber than a minor Supreme Court opinion? Monday’s Taggart v. Lorenzen decision is not a confirmation opinion, but we’ve always tried to cover the Court’s bankruptcy decisions. In Taggart, with Justice Breyer writing for his unanimous colleagues, the Court held that, under § 524 of the Bankruptcy Code, a court can impose civil contempt sanctions for violations of a debtor’s discharge order when there is no “objectively reasonable” basis for viewing the creditor’s conduct as lawful under that order. 

Continue Reading Supreme Court Adopts Objective Standard for Bankruptcy Discharge Violations

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday in Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP v. Appling, a case from the 11th Circuit regarding the bankruptcy dischargeability exceptions in 11 U.S.C.  § 523(a)(2). Locally, Appling is important because it originated across the street–literally–in Chief Bankruptcy Judge James P. Smith’s courtroom here in the Middle

Once again from my in-laws’ home in Potomac, Maryland, here’s Plan Proponent’s Best of 2017 post, a link by link Top 10 of our third year of blogging–although my wife just asked, in rather savage fashion, “Did you even have 10 posts this year?” Wow. (We had 11 posts, so one unlucky post about

The Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors published its 1st Quarter 2017 Journal last Friday. Richard Gaudet, of HDH Advisors, LLC, and I wrote the article titled “Till Realized: Calculating Objective Chapter 11 Cramdown Rates without Expert Testimony.” The focus of the article is on the application of the U.S. Supreme Court

On Tuesday, President Trump nominated Neil M. Gorsuch from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s now long-vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The Gorsuch coverage is already deafening, but, unsurprisingly, there’s little about Judge Gorsuch’s bankruptcy opinions. However, unlike Judge Merrick Garland, former President Obama’s last nominee,