In re Snyder

287 B.R. 228, 2002 Bankr. LEXIS 1523, 2002 WL 31914660
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedMay 31, 2002
DocketNo. 99-51231-293
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 287 B.R. 228 (In re Snyder) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Snyder, 287 B.R. 228, 2002 Bankr. LEXIS 1523, 2002 WL 31914660 (Mo. 2002).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DAVID P. MCDONALD, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court on Debt- or Eric James Snyder’s Motion to Vacate; to Correct; for New Trial (Trial); to Alter or Amend; to Set Aside Orders of February 28, 2002 (Dissolution Opinion and Its Order; and the Confirmation Opinion and Its Order); Affidavit of Debtor; & Request for Change of Judge & Venue. Snyder’s motion was filed in response to the Court’s orders dismissing his bankruptcy petition and denying his motion to set aside state court dissolution proceedings. Based upon a review of the record the Court will deny Snyder’s motion in its entirety.

Snyder’s motion concerns two orders issued by the Court on February 28, 2002. The first order dismissed Snyder’s Chapter 13 petition. The second order denied Snyder’s motion to vacate a state court dissolution proceeding. Snyder claims that the proceeding was held in violation of the automatic stay. The Court will briefly address Snyder’s current motion. The Court will not restate the reasoning contained in its previous orders. Those orders clearly set forth the facts which led to the Court’s decisions.

At the outset, the Court notes that at the time Snyder filed his own bankruptcy [230]*230petitions he was a licensed attorney who had appeared frequently before the bankruptcy bar. In filing petitions for his own bankruptcy, however, the Court finds that Snyder attempted to reap the benefits of bankruptcy without complying with the requirements of the system.

Violation of the Automatic Stay

The majority of Snyder’s current motion involves his claim that his wife violated the automatic stay in his case by attending a dissolution proceeding on October 19, 1999. Snyder claims that an automatic stay was in place because he had filed a bankruptcy petition under Chapter 13 on July 6, 1999. Snyder’s claim is without merit.

On July 6, 1999, Snyder and his wife, Jane Snyder, were scheduled to attend divorce a proceeding in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County Missouri. Snyder admits in his current verified motion that he filed for bankruptcy on July 6, 1999, in order to stop the dissolution proceeding. (Debtor’s Verified Mot. To Vacate ¶47)

When he filed his petition on July 6, 1999, he tendered a check drawn from Eric J. Snyder, P.C., Snyder’s legal practice account. The Bankruptcy Clerk’s Office file stamped a case number on Snyder’s petition and took his check. Snyder left the Court with a copy of his filed petition which reflected the assigned case number. Snyder states that he left the Bankruptcy Court and took his copy of the petition directly to the Circuit Court and successfully stopped the dissolution proceeding. (Debtor’s Verified Mot. To Vacate ¶ 13)

After Snyder left the Court, the Clerk’s Office determined that Snyder’s check was drawn from a personal account and was not an acceptable form of payment.1 Snyder’s petition was not processed. The case number was reassigned to another case. Snyder’s petition and check were returned to him by mail and he was informed that his method of payment of the filing fees was not acceptable. The Clerk’s Office later concluded that instead of returning the petition to Snyder, a better procedure would have been to process the petition in the Court’s system and issue a deficiency notice to Snyder informing him that he needed to make a valid payment of his filing fees within five days or else his case would be dismissed.

Snyder admits that his petition and check were returned to him in an envelope postmarked on July 7, 1999. (Debtor’s Verified Mot. To Vacate ¶ 7) After receiving the return of his petition and cheek, Snyder admits that he did not take any action until he filed a new and second petition on October 19, 1999. (Debtor’s Verified Mot. To Vacate ¶ 50) Snyder claims that although his petition and check were returned to him without being processed by the Court, the petition was deemed filed and he received the benefit of the automatic stay for three months until he filed his second, “safety net” petition on October 19, 1999. He claims that the dissolution proceeding held on October 19, 1999, was in violation of the automatic stay which arose from his July 6, 1999 filing.

Snyder’s claim is disingenuous and his actions belie his claim. Snyder used the file stamped copy of his petition to stop the dissolution proceeding on July 6, 1999. Yet when he received his notification that his filing was defective, he did nothing. A return of a petition and the tendered method of payment of the filing fee check is the ultimate form of a deficiency notice. Snyder, a bankruptcy practitioner, should have appreciated the obvious consequences [231]*231of having his petition returned by the Court, that is, his petition was not effectively filed and he needed to act to correct the situation.

Instead, Snyder chose to do nothing. He had succeeded in stopping the divorce proceeding so he had achieved the goal of his filing for bankruptcy protection. Yet he continues to assert that his petition of July 6, 1999, was properly filed and that the automatic stay was in place on October 19, 1999, when the rescheduled dissolution proceeding was heard.

Snyder’s position is untenable. No one, particularly a bankruptcy attorney, could believe that his case was still alive and well when the petition and payment were returned by the Court. Snyder, an attorney well versed on the bankruptcy process, never questioned why his petition had been returned. Nor did he attempt to contact the Court to inquire why he did not receive a notice of the commencement of the case from the Clerk’s Office or a notice scheduling a section 341 meeting of creditors. The return of his petition and payment combined with his failure to receive the normal bankruptcy notices issued in a case clearly put Snyder on notice that his July 6, 1999, petition was not effectively filed. It became a non-existent case. To effect his filing, Snyder needed to contact the Court and correct his filing. Instead, he chose to do nothing.

It is undisputed that the Court records from July 6, 1999, through October 19, 1999, did not reflect any petition filed by Snyder on July 6, 1999. The Court concludes that when Jane Snyder attended the dissolution hearing on October 19, 1999, the automatic stay was not violated because there was no automatic stay was in place. She, her attorney, and the State Court Judge all acted in good faith.

On October 19, 1999, Jane Snyder attended the rescheduled dissolution proceeding. Snyder had notice of that hearing. On the same day, at 3:42 p.m., in a renewed effort to derail the proceeding, Snyder filed a second “safety net” petition by placing it in the Court’s dropbox.2 Snyder claims that he was unaware that the dissolution proceeding took place that day. (Debtor’s Verified Mot. To Vacate ¶ 25) Yet, Snyder also claims that the reason he filed his second petition on October 19, 1999, was because on the morning of that date his wife “opened the basement door and said that she was leaving” to attend the proceeding. (Debtor’s Verified Mot. To Vacate ¶ 51) He intended to file the second petition that morning to stop the dissolution proceeding but computer problems prevented him from filing until late afternoon. (Debtor’s Verified Mot. To Vacate ¶ 52)

In her response to Snyder’s motion to set aside the dissolution proceeding, Jane Snyder stated that the dissolution proceeding was completed before Snyder filed his second petition at 3:42 p.m.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In Re Lundquist
371 B.R. 183 (N.D. Texas, 2007)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
287 B.R. 228, 2002 Bankr. LEXIS 1523, 2002 WL 31914660, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-snyder-moeb-2002.