Publication Date

2010

Journal

American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review

Abstract

In Taylor v. Freeland & Kronz, a debtor claimed a law suit was exempt. The bankruptcy trustee failed to object within the required period. Later, the law suit realized an amount that far exceeded the monetary limit to which the debtor was entitled. The Supreme Court permitted the debtor to keep all of the proceeds, even beyond the statutory limit, claiming that a deadline was a deadline. Recently, in Schwab v. Reilly, the Supreme Court overruled Taylor, holding that a claim to a monetarily limited item can only exempt the monetary limit. The Court tries and fails to "reconcile" these two holdings. Nevertheless, the rule reached in Schwab is a rational and sensible reading of bankruptcy's exemption process. In the new vision, judicial valuations play no role. An interpretive difficulty arises, however. If judicial valuations play no role in the exemption process, why did Congress bother to craft a careful definition of valuation in Bankruptcy Code section 522(a)(2)? In spite of this embarrassment, a humble role can be found for section 522(a)(2), and the Supreme Court's interpretation of the exemption process can be defended.

Volume

18

First Page

461

Publisher

St. John's University School of Law, West

Keywords

Bankruptcy, Exemption, Bankruptcy Estate, Debtor, Creditor, Judicial Lien

Disciplines

Law

Included in

Law Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.