In Re Rumker

184 B.R. 621, 29 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 564, 1995 Bankr. LEXIS 1035, 1995 WL 447275
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. Georgia
DecidedJuly 24, 1995
Docket18-50694
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 184 B.R. 621 (In Re Rumker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Rumker, 184 B.R. 621, 29 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 564, 1995 Bankr. LEXIS 1035, 1995 WL 447275 (Ga. 1995).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JAMES D. WALKER, Jr., Bankruptcy Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on Motion for Reconsideration filed by Coffee County Bank (“Movant”). A hearing was originally held in this matter on April 25, 1995. This is a core matter under 28 U.S.C. § 157(b)(2)(E). For the following reasons, the Court will deny reconsideration of its previous order. These findings of fact and conclusions of law are entered pursuant to Fed.R.Bankr.P. 7052.

FINDINGS OF FACT

John A. Rumker (“Debtor”) is an attorney engaged in the private practice of law as a solo practitioner. Debtor relies upon his individual labors to maintain his law practice as a going business concern. He filed this Chapter 13 petition on April 10, 1995. The relevant facts of this case are not in dispute.

Movant and Debtor entered into a pre-bankruptcy line of credit agreement whereby Movant provided Debtor with a maximum line of credit of approximately Thirty Thousand Dollars ($30,000.00). In exchange, Debtor executed a promissory note in the same amount as well as a security agreement. The security agreement provided in part:

Security Interest. To secure the payment and performance of the above described Secured Debts, liabilities and obligations, I give you a security interest in all of the property described below that I now own and that I may own in the future (including but not limited to, all parts, accessories, repairs, improvements, and accessions to *623 the property), wherever the property is or may be located, and all proceeds and products from the property.
The secured property includes, but is not limited by, the following: All furniture, fixtures, equipment and accounts receivable included in but not limited to the attached exhibit A wether [sic] now or hereafter acquired and used in the operation of a law practice located in Coffee County, Georgia.

Movant states, and Debtor does not contest, that Movant entered into the credit agreement with Debtor in anticipation of Debtor entering into an employment contract with Coffee County, Georgia. The employment contract was made, and it obligated Debtor to provide legal representation to one-third of the indigent criminal defendants in various state trial courts in Coffee County between August 1, 1998, and December 31, 1994. Debtor was to receive Two Thousand Eighty-three Dollars and Thirty-four Cents ($2,083.34) per month in exchange for his services. Although Movant argues that the contract for employment between Debtor and Coffee County was the basis for the line of credit agreement, the loan documents do not refer to the contract for employment and are not conditioned upon Debtor obtaining employment with Coffee County.

After Debtor entered into the contract with Coffee County he drew upon the line of credit provided by Movant. Movant claims that Debtor owes a total of Twenty-five Thousand Six Hundred Thirty-two Dollars and Thirty-five Cents ($25,632.35) under the loan agreement.

Debtor thereafter entered into a second contract with Coffee County to provide the same legal services as previously contracted during the period between January 1, 1995, and December 31, 1995. Under the second contract, Debtor receives Two Thousand Three Hundred Thirty-three Dollars and Thirty-four Cents ($2,333.34) per month as consideration for his legal services.

Debtor defaulted under the loan agreement and Movant proceeded to notify Coffee County that because of its interest in Debt- or’s accounts receivable, Coffee County should make all future payments under Debt- or’s employment contract to Movant. Mov-ant claims that it received one payment from Coffee County before Debtor filed for bankruptcy protection.

Movant seeks to assert a security interest in Debtor’s unearned post-petition compensation under the Coffee County employment contract as well as any other executory contracts for legal services which existed at the time of the bankruptcy filing. 1 At the original hearing on this matter, Movant sought an order from this Court directing Debtor to segregate and account for all of Movant’s claimed cash collateral. 2 Movant claimed that any post-petition funds earned by Debt- or under the pre-petition employment contract constituted proceeds of accounts receivable, and therefore were subject to Movant’s security interest. The Court found that Movant’s security interest extended to amounts payable for services rendered by Debtor pre-petition, but not to services which were contracted for pre-petition and unperformed as of the petition date.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

The issue before the Court is whether a creditor may assert a security interest in a debtor’s post-petition income or salary payable pursuant to a pre-petition contract for employment. Movant’s security interest purports to attach to property of the debtor existing at the time the security interest was created as well as after-acquired property. Section 552 of the Bankruptcy Code addresses the treatment of after-acquired property clauses in bankruptcy as follows:

(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, property acquired by the estate or by the debtor after the commencement of the case is not subject to any lien resulting from any security agreement entered into by the debtor before the commencement of the case.
*624 (b)(1) Except as provided in sections 363, 506(c), 522, 544, 545, 547, and 548 of this title, if the debtor and an entity entered into a security agreement before the commencement of the case and if the security interest created by such security agreement extends to property of the debtor acquired before the commencement of the case and to proceeds, product, offspring, or profits of such property, then such security interest extends to such proceeds, product, offspring, or profits acquired by the estate after the commencement of the case to the extent provided by such security agreement and by applicable nonbankruptcy law, except to any extent that the court, after notice and a hearing and based on the equities of the case, orders otherwise.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
184 B.R. 621, 29 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 564, 1995 Bankr. LEXIS 1035, 1995 WL 447275, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-rumker-gasb-1995.