well your argument first this morning he's fourteen four hundred charles harris versus roger long chapter thirteen trustee mr madden mr chief justice to me please the court bankruptcy cases can proceed under only one chapter of the bankruptcy code at a time there are three main reasons why when petitioner can produce his case from chapter thirteen to chapter seven responder was required to return post petition wages she held as chapter thirteen trustee first the  right i mean you consider referring to his post petition wages anything that went into the pot that was still there that's right i mean that would be you know lease payments or anything else right yes your honor any petition property including wages now and then in the when the case is converted from chapter thirteen to it really doesn't say what happens to it does it just says what what becomes of the state of the of the chapter seven bankruptcy that's right it leaves up in the air what happens to the material that is not described in that provision right i think the statute doesn't explicitly say what happens to that to that material but by what it does say why would it go back why would it go back to the  automatically because there's only one estate a bankruptcy case that's created at the commencement of the case and so when congress decided what will remain in that a state after conversion and made that decision turn on whether the debtor has acted in good faith or bad faith congress has said what should against your position because the code makes the makes this distinction respectfully i disagree your honor i think the code cuts in our favor because because of this distinction congress has decided that it's only money when a debtor converts its case in bad responsibility to administer that estate and make disbursements to creditors according to the code now here incidentally i must say you are correct i think this does cut in your favorite the idea that  specifically is the property of the state and that's the property we're talking about the property of the thirteen state because it's the property of the thirteen estate goes into seven at the i mean if you treat it like an escrow as they want to you doesn't if you treated like a normal trustee normal trust ya last them us he doesn't and therefore it's outside the statute and there are no other words in the statute that really cut one way or the other you can make an excellent argument either way as to any other word so there we are i read these and i said i don't know  point you're going to point to the to the words unless i really read them several times in the statute i couldn't say but your favorite or their favored i guess i don't know the answer to that word control and i didn't find anything that really helped well section three freed after intense sense with two elements to determine whether property is going to remain in the state it has to both be in a good faith inversion has to be property that existed as it is the petition in still has to exist in the a state but that doesn't say received after he filed with thirteen and what they want to do is make certain that that legacy is contempt counted as part of the seven states isn't that right i think that's part of the congress intended but that might a word that suggests anything else you point to it but there's nothing in section three forty eight after that distinguishes petition property that's held by the debtor versus post petition party that's held by the trustee when congress enacted the statute it intended to define what would remain popular view state in the case going forward and it didn't distinguish what see enter into my first question right pointed to two words possession and control well i think with the case ends and the trustee service has terminated the property  common to approach a different person or is it the same person it's usually a different person so in this case when petitioner converted his case from chapter thirteen to chapter seven to quote the court docket reflected that respondent service had at the end of every day if a trustee has already distributed the money to creditors lawfully under a plan then yes that property has led only in the rare situation when this even rarer than now when this arises and presumably trustees who wish to distribute to creditors can adopt the sort of rule that they desire yes but because trustees are fiduciary of the estate and represent the a state they're not allowed to dissipate estate assets by making frequent even constant trustee so that a rule that says there's a huge difference based on the fortuity of the timing might not make much sense but i think that's the rule respectfully that the congress adopted when they allowed debtors to make the conversion at any time congress didn't require debtor to give notice and congress didn't make conversion effective only after december of the parties can they can handle the situation by providing in the in the chapter thirteen agreement that any funds remaining if there should be a conversion will be distributed among creditors what they can't do is undermine the effects of conversion because under section thirteen zero seven of the code the debt is right to convert the case at any time if not where there is no the parties could not could not that's right the answer is no in that the parties can't undermine the effect of a conversion why would congress adopt a rule that depends so much on happenstance i mean you know if the trustee distributes the money promptly there's nothing there if he waits three months the the debtor gets it all back it gets it's random just literally why would anybody who talked of will like i think the rules adopted here because that the language does not resolve this the funds are not in the possession of the debtor the question is whether he nonetheless still controls them i e gets  exactly the same reaction i think the chief justice and justice scalia have that in the mine run of bankruptcy case whether a trustee at the moment of conversion is holding funds that he should destroy the will be distributed to creditors but they haven't been yet is a fluke chance sometimes there might be a lot sometimes it might be a little it depends on when the mail went out that happen now you've heard the question is the thrust of the question which i think you've now gotten three times right well wrong is it chance is a fluke and i've talked very slowly so i want to be sure that you get this question because it's important to me how you answer the i think the answer is that yes there are some cases in which this will be happenstance but congress has spoken to those cases by loudly but that isn't my question about what congress wants i question is in your experience what is it is it that happenstance governs fifty fifty almost never what your experience i don't know from a survey of the of the bank you know from your experience with my superiors may not be as as bright as what is your experience i would just be curious i'm trying to get some kind of a rough answer here's what i can tell you just prior i think that most chapter thirteen cases are converted because the debtor has stopped being able to make his payments so in the mind of cases there's not really fines in the trustees holding i think what happens are cases like b s where there were funds have built up in the trustees possession for a reason and that's because the creditor to whom they were here mark can no longer obtain those funds under the plan of congress has spoken to this by allowing the debtor in this circumstance or any other to make the conversion at any because chapter thirteen has been a voluntary i don't know i don't understand the three months will do simple accumulated in the state in the ordinary course of there's no change we're going to go out to the creditors and you  said that the creditors can't get them i didn't quite get that if they can't get them only because there's the question that indicated that the trustee is doing something else for that week what they would go to the creditors if in performing the happenstance because they just haven't gone out in the next dispersement congress has made the election that the debtor is still entitled to convert this case it just a matter of follow up on your statement about in this case the clothes not yet had obtained relief from the automatic stay in the bankruptcy case so what happened here is the petitioner was supposed to make his current mortgage payments what's called outside the planner or directly to chase and because of circumstances found himself unable to make those payments and so then when that happened chase went to the bankruptcy court and received relief from the automatic state which allowed them to foreclose but that didn't resolve their claim in the case so what the trustees explains in her brief that she did was to reserve the funds that had been earmarked for chase so that because it's a common circumstance that the murkiest lender and the debtor will then work out a modification of finish this but she didn't give the money to chase no that's correct she decided to distribute it to the other creditors that's exactly right what committed that in the plan well nothing permitted that in the plan until both secured creditors had been paid in full now importantly in this case there were petitioners secured creditors under the plan had been paid full on the date converted his case from chapter thirteen to chapter nine it was only responding ended up filing a document the bankruptcy court called the trustees recommendation concerning claims in which the treatment of chase's claims change but her entitled to the funds that are left over after creditors who have higher priority are paid first mr mann i've been thinking about your response to my earlier question about whether this issue could be covered in the plan if the plan said you know any fun still held by the trustee shall be distributed to the to the creditors your answer was it couldn't because it would contradict the statutory  requirement but there isn't any statutory or i mean that's what we're dealing with we're dealing with an absolute void the statute doesn't say what will happen to this money if the statute doesn't say so what's wrong with having having the parties adopt a provision in the plan that says that and by the way in my estimation this sculpture case because i am much more willing to buy onto a random will of law that the parties can contract out of than a random rule of law that that has to be applied in the future and you and what you're arguing upon us is a random rule of law you're just saying well you know congress wanted case that isn't presented here one set a plan can only provide what the code allows the plan to provide so what it chapter thirteen plan can provide as is specified in section thirteen twenty two of the code and the code provides that eidetic best spur property of the state in any other entity so addenda could vest property in specific entities but there's no provision the code that allows a debtor to invest property generally in creditors then the second problem as i as i mentioned earlier is that under section faith conversion we're asking the trustee to continue performing the service of the trustee african version those provisions of a plan b under mr madden years there's a policy argument that cuts against you which the fifth circuit talked about and of course it's only relevant if the statute doesn't say much of anything about this but let's assume this purpose that the statute doesn't say much of anything about this and what the fifth circuit said was that chapter thirteen is essentially a quid pro quo that th debtor gives up a certain amount of his wages but in exchange the debtor gets to keep his assets and here what the debtor is essentially asking for is to get back the wages but he's got the benefit of having  his assets so he's kind of asking for the quid without the well or the quote without the quid or whatever it is so what's your response to that i think there are a number of problems with you in chapter thirteen through the outlines chapter thirteen is better for debtors and creditors alike  everyone comes out ahead because no creditor can receive less under chapter thirteen plan than they would be entitled to receive under chapter seven liquidation so congress and generally the policy the bankruptcy code is intended to encourage debtors into chapter thirteen because it's better for everyone the idea that a debtor sort of rents the benefits of chapter thirteen from his creditors who stands to gain from him doing so doesn't make a whole lot of sense under the way the bankruptcy code is structured what about i gather there can be payments directly to the creditors assume they get those without having to worry about this problem that's correct under chapter thirteen either the debt or the trustee can be the dispersing agent under the plan but in either case it's when the money is dispersed by the dispersing agent that the rights shift the creditor open in the case of the creditor who has paid directly that's sort of no middleman right that's right but if the question is whether that when they've been paid the property leaves the estate and becomes poppy the creditors now but i guess i'm just trying to highlight another randomness and fortuity in that some creditors will be get their money directly others will go through the estate and if you get your money directly you are going to have to worry about this that's true if the debtor keeps up his payments the reason why i think most creditors like trustee to be holding funds in the estate i'm subject to future dispersants as appropriate is that that increases the likelihood of success of what is what is a practical matter is there a direct deposit of a portion of wages with the creditor it varies from case to case in this case respondent of affectively i had it was called the wage warner so petitioners employer sent a portion of his income directly to the trustee every month now what would happen sort of thing i assume that also be a right to recoup from the creditor the creditors receive something improperly but there may be as it ended recoupment principles i think that maybe may well be true your honor i think returning to the point about the ending of the trustee service the practical significance of that is that congress didn't want to trustees functioning case at the same time once the case had been converted there was the claims against the estate in the chapter thirteen case automatically became claims against the state in the chapter seven case and so what happened here is you have a chapter thirteen trustee still acting on in paying claims as chapter thirteen with still going all the while a chapter seven trustee had taken over the reigns of being the representative of the state and dealing with claims the money that's in the hands of the trustee at the moment that the chapter seven petition is filed will probably be wages that under the thirteen plan were to be distributed to creditors and the trustee has to make out a check to somebody so the only question is is the name of the trustee acts which is the creditor to which it has gone or is the name  which is the debtor or the equivalent so i don't see how we get very far saying that the trustees services an entity that no one thinks the trustee would keep the money and again six of one half a dozen of the other but i think there's a difference here because the trustees core function while serving as trustee while serving as the representative of the state under the code is to disperse sponsor a creditor why do you think that the trusteeship filed a brief on the other side i'm  writing what name you write i think that may be a better question for mike my colleague now what's your view of it i do want to ask them without getting your view i think the trustee is attempting to chip to send funds to whoever the trustee is supposed to send funds to and you just see that were paid to the trustee as as her or percentage of the cases well if there are no other questions i'd like to reserve the balance of my time for a bank account but mr chief justice and may please the court the funds at issue here were held by the trustee under the terms of a confirm plan that obligated her to distribute those funds to creditors petition or not distribute the funds to creditors so just a sudden that is a problem that arises not just in bankruptcy but under the common wall all the time a trust can terminate and a trustee can be holding funds and is left with the question of do these go back to the grant to work i pay them back once were do i pay them forwards and long before there was a bankruptcy code there is an established common law principle that says first the trust pays the obligations of the trust and the obligations of the trust include mature claims of beneficiaries that's the rule but that comes out of section two thirty five a of the second restatement and section eighty nine of the third restatement and the bankruptcy code is written against that common law backdrop and where the corroded there are indications in the code we think those indications support the notion that it's consistent with the common law that if you paid forward but you need stamp the crow will conclude that nothing in the bankruptcy code helps answer the question there should be no reason to think that congress creation i believe you are referring to says the following it says that upon the conversion of the case the chapter spurt the chapter seven estate is made up of the assets that the debtor had on the petition date that they still have on the conversion date so there's the question the question congressman doing with this is exactly the question that justice breyer was referring to which is let's say during the course of the thirteen there's some sort of room for that come into the estate does that become part of the chapter seven estate the answer to that is no but that question that determination says nothing about funds that the debtor already paid out to the trustee at a time when the debtor was to pay those funds to the trustee in order to obtain the benefits of being in chapter thirteen at that time it is this raises the question why you should treat differently the that say the inheritance from the new wages another word say that new wages come in their garnished it goes straight to the trustee but that's also a fertility you know why should you treat the wages differently from the inheritance so just as the answer is because better made a decision to pay these funds over to the trustee here the decision was done through a congressman order but that itself is of course itself a fortuity what we're talking about a funds that a debtor made a voluntary decision to pay over to a trustee in order to remain in chapter thirteen if the debtor until he decided to switch that titian to a chapter seven that's right he could have done that at any time so the dead are here had the ability as soon as chase received will be from the stay to convert at that time if the letter didn't make that decision the debtor instead decided for the remaining twelve months to remain in chapter thirteen and two of the benefits of being in chapter thirteen p section two thirty five a of the second restating of trust feels exactly with this question the answer is the revocation here the debtors decision to convert effect of the operated as a revocation because of that the remaining three years worth of payments that he otherwise would have been obligated to pay he didn't have to pay but as to the funds that were already in the trust as we are it that obligations have mature the  trustee is required to pay those mature and obligations the situation that's another it's in my example the january money which is a mood before the revocation goes to the beneficiary that's exactly the march money goes back to the set more that's exactly the same the same is true here that the pre petition seven money that was owed and not paid should it in the hands of the of the trustee go to the creditor but any money that he has to choose from or the creditors when they are not yet entitle to it say like an early payment of a yes next month's they go back to the to the debtor just as i think that's exactly right protection to thirty five a of the of the second restatement trust talks about a life beneficiary who's entitle to all of the income of the trust during their life on income comes in while they're alive but before they die the question is does that where does that go to go back to the grand tour or does it go to the state of a life beneficiary and they enter that section two thirty five a says it goes to that to be a state of the life beneficiary because that obligation make sure i'm under the terms of the trust before the revocation that same kinds of poll i think is fully know we call this mr harrison's estate least more naturally than we would call it you know consumer electronics chase manhattan's whatevers estate and isn't that of a fairly strong signal of who should get the stuff that's kind of left in the middle on mr chief justice that the bankruptcy code it is his estate but it is a state in be arm paid inconsistent with the terms of the plan and why and i backdrop for example under section thirteen twenty eight day of the bankruptcy code it says the debtor is entitled to the discharge upon the debtors completion of the payments he is required to make under the plan it doesn't say when the trustee distributes that money to creditors so when the when the debtor makes the last payment he's required to make under the trust state which is at least a signal that the legally operative moment within that congress was contemplating was the debtor making the plant pain can i go back and trust you just and the ass signy of the grand jury namely the grand jury takes the corpus of the trust free from the trust but what you are saying is if i look further into that i will discover that if the grand crossed on february wrong and if under the trust documents one hundred dollars was due to a beneficiary on january one and one march one standard trust law is the beneficiary gets one hundred dollars from january and does not get one hundred dollars from march that's exactly right and i had to end it in a thing that i will look up in the in the in the trust law to show that addition to the on provision regarding the anyone else any other circuit bankruptcy court treated your function as that of a typical trust hybrid of escrow law and trusts law we think that's the best way to think about it as between the two they both point the same direction so i don't think a great deal turns on whether the lens of the common law here is that of escrow or that of trust there are cases a number of them that have talked about the role of the trustee by reference to the common law of trust it to congress did after all use the term trust state which is some indication that it was drawing on the common law backdrop of trust and thinking about this question to go but what do you do but the argument that oh what your scheme to be done cannot be done because immediately upon the conversion the chapter thirteen trusts to be no longer has any powers so just leave that argument from section three forty eight of the bankruptcy code simply proves too much as was suggested earlier the trustee clearly has to distribute the money to someone trustee keep the money herself she obviously needs to distribute it and that common lot trusts terminate and there is a doctrine about the wind up obligations of the trustee upon terminations i suppose you're saying that the the service of the trustee is both to the debtor in the creditors it would to the creditors then you would have a weaker position in fairness justice kennedy that the obligations that the trustee has to carry out the terms of the plan that includes obligations that run for the specific requirement for that but not for the case we hear so justice kennedy that prevention of three forty eight three forty eight after deals with the situation that justice pryor was referring to which is what if the debtor during the life of the chapter thirteen case received an inheritance so money that the debtor still had hadn't yet voluntarily paid over to the state received an inheritance but she converted in an act of gamesmanship no but i would suppose group to your case to dealt with three forty eight outfits the debtor files a chapter thirteen case on day one loose in chapter thirteen for some period of time and then converse so the question is ok what universe of property is that in a chapter seven a state is it all the property of the debtor had at the beginning of the case or is it the property of the debtor had on the day of conversion that was a fair question and there is disagreement in the courts on that question until one thousand nine hundred four congress answered that question by saying the property of the thirteen  state is the property that the debtor had on the petition date the original petition date that they still have as of the date of conversion and the reason that makes sense is for the reason just as dr identified because otherwise someone who came this in the in way michael decision if the debtor is home required equity during the course of the bankruptcy will the debtor just saved a lot of work hard and save money in the ocean is by defining the state that  it aloud the debtor to keep what the debtor had obtained during the life of the chapter thirteen even when it converts but that doesn't say a word about what happens to funds that the debtor paid during the bankruptcy in order to reap team the benefits of being in eight two with the debtor was required to pay all of his projected disposable income for the benefit of his unsecured creditors that was the cost to benefit the debtor kings on the other side if he gets to keep his assets there's also a policy argument mr gold but it works against you which is that one of the things we know is that congress didn't want disincentive eyes debtors from use in chapter thirteen and essentially if you when you're under your argument the is worse for haven't tried chapter thirteen than if he had gone into chapter seven initially because he's now being put to paying down debt that would have been discharged under chapter seven and why should we give him that kind of double whammy given congress view that we should want people to try chapter thirteen first so just going to a few different answers if i may first under section seven of seventy two a with above median income may not it is is presumptively abusive if they file for chapter seven in the first instance and here the record which includes the description that joint appendix page thirty seven about whether to file for chapter thirteen is going to be affected the debtor of course has no control over when the trustee makes payments and it seems to me if it is only just a disadvantage if he had filed for chapter seven immediately he wouldn't have had to do them justice scalia that's in fairness that's probably right that after the you go after the fact it is absolutely right but but you're exacerbating the effect of that under your propos here is in terms of incentives another way is just to say that and in on lies people for going into chapter thirteen for a strike but just as kagan in fairness this isn't a penalty after all they had the trustee distributed these funds to creditors before baseline is to the extent possible to make it to encourage chapter thirteen and not to impose extra costs on the people who go there but but but but it's with respect it's not an extra cost it is clear about the cost of being in chapter thirteen and by function of the statute is the debtor is obligated to pay all of his projected disposable income to the plan for the benefit of unsecured creditors as the price of being in chapter thirteen here the debtor obtain those benefits he was able to keep his property throughout the time he was in chapter thirteen to trust just a sort of my us question he also was able to seek to negotiate with chase the effort to modify his mortgage so what happened in this case is he reached the conclusion that he couldn't keep his house arm under the monthly payments on the mortgage as it existed but as commonly occurs particularly since the financial crisis undertook to negotiate with chase for a modification of a mortgage could he reduce the plan payments if he could have gotten to a mortgage modification that would have been implemented by a modified plan here he they tried they tried for a year they were ultimately unsuccessful but it but the opportunity to try is the benefit of chapter thirteen and it can't be the case that because he was alternately unsuccessful you can say that he didn't obtain the benefit during the period in which he was trying to do that that was a voluntary decision on his part in as as the petitioner explains could have converted any time so if you didn't want to continue to develop his projected disposable income under the terms of the plan while he was doing so he had every issue of who gets this money would the parties be able to alter that disposition in the plan so justice scalia that that's a really good question and one with which we have struggled arm we believe that the implications of congressional intent that congress did not mean to permit this i'm sure you agree with here with the early on on that well we are on the on the flip side we  yes the question i think you're under intense to ask is if they said that and someone objected could that properly be confirmed and our view is that well that's a close question and thankfully not the presented here that the better view is that a plan that said the money goes back to the debtor is sufficiently inconsistent with the structure of the code that that that touch a plan couldn't be confound but that is a much closer question than the one you have here where there is no language and so the language of the plan should be read against the common law backdrop which enters this question decisively in our favor typically how would how often are distributions made every three months or so in the ordinary case my understanding experience is that trustees will make monthly distributions here excess a wrong is sufficient funds have accumulated to make that worthwhile here with the trustee j but interest to get here makes good sense so chase got state relief the trustee was holding money once it got relief and again this in response to just a sort of my years earlier question the plan says what happens there can be drawn appendix on pages thirty four and thirty five and it sets out a priority of payment under the plan and chase when it got stale relief on that that are satisfied in full it's secure a claim just when in time a secured credit gets back its collateral that satisfies the secure a claim of the secure creditor so the just going through to use the bankruptcy for an accurate the waterfall created by the plan the funds flowed according to two but they're clear to the one secured creditors after the payment of it ministry of claims that's a very common feature of plans and kick away trustees when there are material funds to be distributed will distribute on a monthly basis here the trustee didn't distribute those funds because the debtor presumably want to be opportunity to take this time to try to save their house she's acting in the interests of the debtor that she she was seeking to serve the objectives of the crew and the plan chapter the reason people file for chapter thirteen primarily is to save their house and so that was debtor filed and the trustee was trying to do consistent with the plan what the purpose of the case was when those efforts failed on the trustee can obviously cause that to succeed when it failed the trust  converting what the chapter seven the debtor is required to turn over all of their nonexempt assets around the one ring is that as of that instant is it the case that under the thirteen plain as of that instant the phones were already there was already on the trustee at that instant a fixed obligation to write the check to the creditors so then and there certainly by no later than the moment of conversion there was a shift there was a fixed obligation so that's why but if there had been money in that pile which i'm simply keeping for if it wouldn't exactly been pretty plain there would have been money there because of the situation you describe and if there was not an obligation as of the section seven filing instance to pay the money trust so just prior just in a fairness i think there's a difference between when the creditors write to payment attaches and when the debtors obligation to make the payment is and what would happen if a debtor pre fund the plan strikes me just without having thought about it as hard as perhaps i should have before today as a different and perhaps more complicated no case not a rule you provided an easy principle the principle is as in trust if that's what is meant by just a great bend of the blow was wrong in that regard if it meant by vested right something beyond that need not be it was right i think the legal standard on is is there a mature and obligation of the trust and that clearly did exist when that does or doesn't give rise to a vested right under some different definition of vesting is unclear to me but what is clear is that the trust had a mature it obligation to pay the funds solicitor general is not here in this case that government the trustees don't care who they pay this money to as long as they have a clear rule is that correct i don't think that that's right justice kagan here but national association of chapter thirteen trustees has come in in support of of our position the executive office of the united states trustee plays a very different role in bankruptcy cases and so their absence i think is evidence that the role of that office i say is different and do you think that it matters to the trustee is to any of them what they were you know this as a rule rule or only is that the four rule that can be changed by the plan is there any reason why they would care about that question i don't i don't fairness i don't know the answer to that it seems it seems clear to me that in the absent that as a default role this is the right answer i think the prudent thing to do would be to wait for a case in which someone sought to change the default to address the next question of can you change the default are my answer my i believe that the better view is probably that you cannot because there are indications in the code that suggest that congress intended the application of what we're calling the default rule arm but whether that's right or wrong it seems to me should properly await a case in which it's actually presented  in sound but the question here is the debtor is entitled to convert his case to chapter seven at any time everyone agrees that when he does that terminate his obligations to make payments into the trust the question is whether the decision to terminate essentially is retroactive that by terminated by movement or decision to confer he not only excuses himself a free future obligations but is able to undo payments he previously made when he enjoyed the benefits jump responder requires the courts declare that a chapter thirteen trustee doesn't include property of the estate and isn't to represent a view of the estate but instead holds a new species of property as a bankruptcy trustee that already belongs to creditors and acts as a desperation to creditors  sole of representative instead of a representative of the estate and i replied pages six to seven we point to a number of indications in the code where that would be inconsistent with the way the bankruptcy code is structured to take just one example the code gives the trustee the right to deposit money with the a state in the interest bearing account but in the respondents view after confirmation of a plan a chapter thirteen trustee holds property of the creditors and lacks statutory authorization to make that deposit violence i think to the basic structure of chapter thirteen which would have a number of implications in other cases to declare that a chapter thirteen trustee is no longer a representative of the state and if you do sheri of an estate but instead is an agent of the creditors second paragraph four chapter thirteen trustee upon conversion to chapter seven is required to turn over property of the estate to the new chapter seven trustee it's no more a service that the trustee performs as the trustee in the case to turn over property his no longer property of the estate to the debtor the service that the trustee performs is to take possession of property of the estate to examine an object claims and when appropriate to pay to pay creditors according to the chapter of the code under which the trustee operates now here that's apparent because to make the payment the trustee made in this case the respondent had to file a document with the bankruptcy court to recommend how to treat claims as we explained in the reply brief respondent had to tell the court that we should treat chase's fifty five hundred dollar claim as being allowed only in the amount of one thousand dollars because that renders chase paid in full and allows unsecured creditors to obtain payment under the plan but all of that only happened after that after the debtor converted his case to chapter seven and what congress is intending to prevent is to have two trustees operating in the same bankruptcy case on the same estate dealing with the same creditors claims that's what the term a nation of the service of a trustee upon conversion means