Tag: discharge

Debtor’s Refusal to Return Electronic Data = Embezzlement – No Bankruptcy Discharge – IL ND

FNA Group, Inc. v. Arvanitis, 2015 WL 5202990 (Bankr. N.D. Ill. 2015) examines the tension between the bankruptcy code’s aim of giving a financial fresh start to a debtor and the Law’s attempt to protect creditors from underhanded debtor conduct to avoid his debts.

After a 15-year employment relationship went sour, the plaintiff power washing company sued a former management-level employee when he failed to turn over confidential company property (the “Data”) he had access to during his employment.

After refusing a state court judge’s order to turn over the Data and an ensuing civil contempt finding, the defendant filed bankruptcy.

The plaintiff filed an adversary complaint in the bankruptcy case alleging the defendant’s (now the debtor) embezzlement and wilfull injury to company Data.

The plaintiff asked the bankruptcy court to find that the debtor’s obligations to the plaintiff were not dischargeable (i.e. could not be wiped out).

Siding with the plaintiff, the Court provides a useful discussion of the embezzlement and the wilfull and malicious injury bankruptcy discharge exceptions.

The bankruptcy code’s discharge mechanism aims to give a debtor a fresh start by relieving him of pre-petition debts. Exceptions to the general discharge rule are construed strictly against the creditor and liberally in favor of the debtor.

Embezzlement under the bankruptcy code means the “fraudulent appropriation of property” by a person to whom the property was entrusted or to whom the property was lawfully transferred at some point.

A creditor who seeks to invoke the embezzlement discharge exception must show: (1) the debtor appropriated property or funds for his/her benefit, and (2) the debtor did so with fraudulent intent.

Fraudulent intent in the embezzlement context means “without authorization.” 11 U.S.C. s. 523(a)(4).

The Court found the creditor established all embezzlement elements. First, the debtor was clearly entrusted with the Data during his lengthy employment tenure. The debtor also appropriated the Data for his own use – as was evident by his emails where he threatened to destroy the Data or divulge its contents to plaintiff’s competitors.

Finally, the debtor lacked authorization to hold the Data after his resignation based on a non-disclosure agreement he signed where he acknowledged all things provided to him remained company property and had to be returned when he left the company.

By holding the Data hostage to extract a better severance package, the debtor exhibited a fraudulent intent.

The court also refused to allow a debtor discharge based on the bankruptcy code’s exception for willful and malicious injury. 11 U.S.C. s. 523(a)(6).

An “injury” under this section equates to the violation of another’s personal or property rights. “Wilfull” means an intent to injure the person’s property while “malicious” signals a conscious disregard for another’s rights without cause.

Here, the debtor injured the plaintiff by refusing to release the Data despite a (state) court order requiring him to do so. Plaintiff spent nearly $200,000 reconstructing the stolen property and retaining forensic experts and lawyers to negotiate the Data’s return.

Lastly, the debtor’s threatening e-mails to plaintiff in efforts to coerce the plaintiff to up its severance payment was malicious under Section 523 since the e-mails exhibited a disregard for the importance of the Data and its integrity.

Take-aways:

The bankruptcy law goal of giving a debtor fiscal breathing room has limits. If the debtor engages in intentional conduct aimed at evading creditors or furthers a scheme of lying to the bankruptcy court, his pre-petition debts won’t be discharged.

This case is post-worthy as it gives content to the embezzlement and wilfull and malicious property damage discharge exceptions.

Fired Lawyer Can Recover Pre-Firing Fees Under Quantum Meruit – No Evidentiary Hearing is Required – IL Appeals Court

 

The estate of a young woman killed in a car crash hired an attorney (Lawyer 1) to file a personal injury suit against the drivers involved in the crash. The estate representatives entered into a 1/3 contingent fee arrangement with the attorney who placed an attorney’s lien on any recovery by the estate.

About 2 years later, the estate fired Lawyer 1 and hired Lawyer 2.  Lawyer 2 eventually facilitated a settlement for the estate in the amount of $75,000 and filed a motion to adjudicate the Lawyer 1’s attorney lien.

Lawyer 1 claimed he was entitled to $25,000 – 1/3 of the settlement amount.   After considering his affidavit and time records, but without an evidentiary hearing, the trial court awarded Lawyer 1 a fraction (about $14K less) of what he sought on a quantum meruit basis (number of hours times hourly rate).

On appeal, Lawyer 1 argued the trial court denied him due process by not holding a formal hearing and erred by not awarding him more fees given the settlement’s proximity in time to his firing.

That’s the procedural backdrop to Dukovac v. Brieser Construction, 2015 IL App (3d) 14038-U, a recent unpublished Third District decision that addressed whether a fee petition requires an evidentiary hearing and the governing standards that guide a court’s analysis when assessing fees of discharged counsel.

The Third District upheld the trial court’s fee award and in doing so, relied on some well-settled fee award principles.

In Illinois, a client has the right to fire an attorney at any time. Once that happens, any contingency fee agreement signed by the client and attorney is no longer enforceable.

After he is discharged, an attorney’s recovery is limited to quantum meruit recovery for any services rendered before termination.

In situations where a case settles immediately after a lawyer is discharged, the lawyer can recover the full contract price.

In determining a reasonable fee under quantum meruit principles, the court considers several factors including (i) the time and labor required, (ii) the attorney’s skill and standing, (iii) the nature of the case, (iv) t he novelty and difficulty of the subject matter, (v) the attorney’s degree of responsibility in managing the case, (vi) the usual and customary charge for the type of work in the community where the lawyer practices, and (vii) the benefits flowing to the client.

A trial court adjudicating a lawyer’s lien can use its knowledge acquired in the discharge of its professional duties along with any evidence presented at the lien adjudication hearing.

Here, the appeals court that the trial court properly considered discharged Lawyer 1’s time records and affidavit in making its quantum meruit award. Even though there was no evidentiary hearing, the time sheets and affidavit gave the trial court enough to support its fee award.

Afterwords:

This case provides a good synopsis of the governing rules that apply where an attorney is discharged and the case soon after settles. A trial court has wide discretion in fashioning a fee award and doesn’t have to hold an evidentiary hearing with live witness testimony.

A clear case lesson is that a discharged petitioning attorney should be vigilant in submitting detailed time records so that the court has sufficient evidence to go on in making the fee award.

Student Loan Discharge In Bankruptcy: How Hard Is It?

In Steven Harper’s The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession In Crisis, the author (quoting a newspaper article) describes Federally guaranteed student loans as the closest thing to a debtor prison in existence.  Lawyer Bubble, p. 11.  This statement, while jarring, has some empirical support.  In the book, Harper cites bankruptcy code changes that have made it virtually impossible to get student loan debt relief in all but the most extreme (and trying) circumstances.  He also provides anecdotes, documented examples and profuse research to back up his arguments.

Hard data aside, the “knowledge” that student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy has permeated the collective consciousness.  Indeed, the difficulties a bankrupt debtor must surmount to get a discharge from student loan debt have assumed near-mythic proportions.  The popular narrative is that student loan relief is given in only the most severe (think physical and mental infirmities coupled with fiscal calamity) circumstances and that it’s basically not even worth trying to get a discharge.  And in many cases, the belief is accurate: it is nearly impossible to convince a bankruptcy judge to grant a student loan discharge.  

This extreme difficulty in securing a discharge is graphically illustrated by the depressing fact patterns that underlie many student loan discharge cases where relief is granted only under the sadness-tinged “certainty of hopelessness” standard.  In many of these cases – in which the court does grant discharge relief – the court chronicles the lives of borrowers who live in abject poverty and in desperate conditions, all the while trying to support themselves and their dependents.  Yet, for other student borrowers whose circumstances aren’t as severe, the courts often refuse their discharge requests.  

But in the Seventh Circuit, as shown by a recent decision, getting a discharge may not be as difficult as previously understood.  In Krieger v. Educational Credit Management Corp., 213 F.3d 882 (7th Cir. 2013), the Court seems to relax the austere requirements for a borrower who seeks to discharge student loan debt.  In that case, the Court discharged nearly $25,000 in student loans where the borrower was in good health, educated and had solid academic credentials.

Like other cases in the student loan discharge milieu, Krieger’s underlying facts aren’t sunny.  The debtor was in her fifties and lived with her elderly mother.  She was divorced and lived in a rural area where jobs are scarce.  She hadn’t worked in over twenty years, lacked income, assets and reliable transportation.  The debtor filed an adversary proceeding to discharge student loan debt which she acquired to attend paralegal school.  The lender objected and after a trial, the bankruptcy judge sided with the debtor and discharged the loans.  The lender appealed and the District Court (bankruptcy  orders are appealed to District court) reversed on the grounds that the debtor didn’t show undue hardship.  The Seventh Circuit reversed and found that the debtor was entitled to a discharge.

 Rules/Reasoning:

Section 523(a)(8) of the Bankruptcy Code provides that student loans are generally excepted from discharge unless “excepting such debt from discharge….would impose an undue hardship on the debtor.”  11 U.S.C. 523(a)(8).  Undue hardship isn’t defined in the Code but the standard’s content is instead established by the caselaw from various jurisdictions.

To analyze undue hardship (whether the borrower demonstrates undue hardship) 7th Circuit applies the three-part test espoused by the Second Circuit in In re Brunner (831 F.2d 395 (2nd Cir. 1987) – a seminal Second Circuit case from the late 1980s.  To establish undue hardship, the borrower must show, by a preponderance of the evidence that (1)  the debtor can’t maintain a “minimal standard of living” based on current income and expenses; (2) “additional circumstances” exist that show that the state of affairs is likely to persist for a significant portion of the repayment period of the loans (the so-called “persistence” element); and (3) that the debtor-borrower has made good faith efforts to repay the loans.

The Seventh Circuit found that all three undue hardship factors were met.  The debtor showed that she was destitute, lived in a remote area that was “out of the money economy”, and hadn’t worked in over two decades.  The Court also found that the debtor’s circumstances were likely to persist and unlikely to financially improve in the future.  On this second factor – the “persistence” factor – the court rejected other courts’ requirement of the debtor showing “certainty of hopelessness”, finding that the undue hardship standard is a more flexible test.

Noticeably absent from the analysis though, is any discussion of the debtor’s “good faith.”  Other cases look to whether the debtor took advantage of reduced-payment options as well as the debtor’s past payment efforts.  Here, though, the Court simply held that the good faith element of the undue hardship test involves a fact-specific analysis that requires “clear error” for reversal.  The Court also held that a debtor is not required to exhaust all reduced-payment options as a predicate for showing good faith.  In finding good faith, the Seventh Circuit found that the bankruptcy judge’s good faith determination based on the debtor’s 200 unsuccessful job applications over the years wasn’t clearly erroneous and should have been upheld.

Manion’s cautionary concurrence:

In his concurrence, Judge Manion notes that the debtor is physically healthy, intelligent and graduated from paralegal school with a high GPA.  Judge Manion didn’t think the debtor’s circumstances were egregious enough to merit a discharge and even wondered whether other student borrowers will use this case as an “excuse to avoid their own student loan obligations?”  He pointed out that debtor’s applying for 200 jobs over a 10-year period amounted to less than two applications per month.  Hardly a Herculean job search effort.

Take-aways: Compared to other student discharge decisions – where the debtor is either physically or mentally impaired or is responsible for  sick parents or children – Krieger arguably establishes a more lenient discharge standard.  Clearly, the debtor was insolvent, destitute and hadn’t worked in decades.  But she was also physically healthy and educated.  The debtor’s circumstances seem to be missing an element of “certainty of hopelessness” – the standard that governed Seventh Circuit  discharge cases before Krieger.  At any rate, it’s too early to tell if this case represents a sea-change in student loan discharge cases.  It’s also unclear whether this case will result in an uptick in student discharge attempts.  Still, the case is worth reading for its topical relevance as well as its statistical description of the Federal loan-student borrower bankruptcy crisis.