In re Rodriguez

555 B.R. 871, 2016 WL 4447254
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. Florida.
DecidedAugust 22, 2016
DocketCASE NO. 15-10322-RAM
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 555 B.R. 871 (In re Rodriguez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. Florida. primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Rodriguez, 555 B.R. 871, 2016 WL 4447254 (Fla. 2016).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER ON CLAIM OBJECTIONS

Robert A. Mark, Judge, United States Bankruptcy Court

When chapter 13 plans provide for full payment to unsecured creditors, it is not surprising that debtors object to as many unsecured claims as they can. Because many claims are relatively small, creditors often do not file responses or appear at hearings on claims objections. Nevertheless, the Court has the responsibility to ensure that legitimate claims are not disallowed.

The Debtors in this case objected to three claims based on insufficient documentation even though the Debtors scheduled these debts as undisputed in the amounts claimed by the creditors in their proofs of claim. The Debtors have also objected to eleven other claims because the account summary statement attached to each of these proofs of claim include a notation that the debt was “charged off.” As explained in this opinion, the Debtors’ grounds for objecting to these claims are not legally sufficient.

Procedural Background

Amaurys Rodriguez and Anaen Nunez (the “Debtors”) filed a joint chapter 13 petition on January 7, 2015. Their Second Amended Chapter 13 Plan [DE# 57] (the [873]*873“Plan”) was confirmed on July 23, 2015 [DE# 65]. The Plan provides for unsecured creditors to receive $164.05 per month for months 25 to 60, but also in-, eludes a provision that “[t]he debtors will modify the plan to increase the amounts to be paid to provide for a 100% payment of all allowed unsecured claims” [DE# 57, p. 2].

The Debtors filed three separate Objections to Claims [DE#s 92, 93, and 94] (the “Objections”), objecting to fifteen of the twenty unsecured claims filed in this case. The Debtor objected to eleven of the claims solely because the proofs of claim noted that these debts were charged-off. The Debtors objected to three other claims alleging not only that these debts were charged-off, but also alleging that the proofs of claim as filed fail to comply with Fed. R. Bankr. P. 3001(c)(1). Only one creditor, eCAST Settlement Corporation (“eCAST”), filed a response to the Debtors’ objection to its claim [DE #98]. The eCAST response argues that the charge-off notation in its proof of claim is not a valid basis for disallowing its claim.

After reading eCAST’s response, the Court reviewed all three sets of Objections, discovered that most of the objections were based on the charge-off argument, and found it appropriate to schedule a hearing. To that end, on July 5,2016, the Court- entered its Order Setting Hearing on Claim Objections [DE# 111]. That Order scheduled a hearing on July 14, 2016, on the objections asserted in Objections to Claims 92 and 94 and a hearing to reconsider the Court’s May 24, 2016 Order sustaining the Debtors’ Objections to Claims 3, 4,17, and 19.1

Prior to the July 14th hearing, for obvious strategic purposes, the Debtors withdrew their Objection to Claim No. 11 filed by eCAST, the only creditor to respond to any of the Objections. The focus of the July 14th hearing was the legal sufficiency of the charge-off objections. No creditors appeared at the July 14th hearing and the Debtors urged the Court to sustain the objections for lack of opposition. The Court declined. In short, the Court concluded that a notation on an account statement that a debt has been charged-off does not affect the enforceability of that claim, particularly in the absence of proof that the creditor has obtained a tax benefit or that the Debtors have suffered a tax burden as a result of the charge-off.

Because of the number of objections at issue, the Court invited Debtors’ counsel to submit a post-hearing response identifying claims that were objected to on other grounds. On July 20, 2016, the Debtors filed their Response in Support of Disal-lowance of Claims (the “Debtors’ Response”) [DE# 119].

The Debtors’ Response withdrew the Debtors’ Objection to Claim No. 10 and identified Claim No. 4 as a duplicate of Claim No. 3. The Court agrees that the Objection to Claim .No. 4 should be sustained on that basis. The Debtors’ Response also argued that the objections to Claim Nos. 5, 6, and 7 filed by Cach, LLC should be sustained because the creditor failed to attach documentation allegedly required by Fed. R. Bankr. P. 3001(c)(2) and (c)(3).

Discussion

Debtors’ Rule 3001(c) Objections Lack Merit

The Debtors’ objections to Claim Nos. 5, 6, and 7 filed by Cach, LLC assert that the claimant did not comply with Fed. R. Bank. P. 3001(c)(1), because the proofs [874]*874of claim did not attach a copy of the writing upon which the claims are based. The objections note that Rule 3001(c)(1) is not applicable to open-end or revolving consumer credit agreements governed by Rule 3001(c)(3), but allege that the claimant failed to provide proof that its claims are based on open-end or revolving credit agreements.

The Debtors’ Rule 3001(c) argument is wrong. Rule 3001(c)(3) does not require a creditor to “prove” that its claim is based on an open-end or revolving consumer credit agreement. It simply requires the creditor to include a statement with its claim that provides the following account information:

(i) the name of the entity from whom the creditor purchased the account;
(ii) the name of the entity to whom the debt was owed at the time of an account holder’s last transaction on the account
(iii) the date of an account holder’s last transaction;
(iv) the date of the last payment on the account; and
(v) the date on which the account was charged to profit and loss

Fed. R. Bankr. P. 3001(c)(3)(A).

Cach, LLC attached a Rider to each of its claims that fully complies with these requirements. Therefore, the Debtors have no basis to argue that the creditor failed to comply with Rule 3001(c). Further, the Debtors’ objections to Claim Nos. 5, 6, and 7 are not good faith objections because the debts listed in these claims were scheduled as undisputed by the Debtors in amounts (rounded to the nearest dollar) identical to the amounts asserted by the creditor in its proofs of claim.

More than ten years ago, this Court issued its opinion in In re Moreno, 341 B.R. 813, 817 (Bankr.S.D.Fla.2006) (“Moreno”) holding that the failure to attach sufficient documentation to proofs of claim for credit card debts was not, by itself, a basis for disallowing unsecured credit card claims.2 Moreover, the Court specifically criticized the tactic of filing an objection to an undisputed scheduled claim stating that “if a debt is scheduled... for an amount equal to or exceeding the amount in the proof of claim, this Court will not tolerate attempts to obtain orders disallowing these claims if the only basis for the objection is lack of documentation. Moreno, 341 B.R. at 819. In a later decision from this district, Judge Olson followed Moreno and went a step, further sanctioning debtor’s counsel for filing objections to scheduled claims based solely on lack of documentation. In re Velez, 465 B.R. 912 (Bankr.S.D.Fla.2012).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
555 B.R. 871, 2016 WL 4447254, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-rodriguez-flsb-2016.