liability for destroyed violations under the code all sides to this case now agree that the ninth circuit was wrong there is no per se rule that courts can never provide relief when a creditor violates the discharging good faith but response in the government now propose adopting a different kind of percy rule this categorical would adopt a profoundly textual qualified immunity like defense for the code declaring that courts can never provide relief so long as a creditor can identify any fair reasonable grounds for violating the discharge this novel proposal has no foothold in this court's traditional principles for enforcing injunctions or the chords the codes broad equitable authority under section one hundred five there is no per se rule that excuses subjective or objective mistakes under the code section one zero five provides broad authority to enforce and restore the statutory discharge and the code bars all efforts to collect discharge debts not only and reasonable ones in taking the opposite position response of the government ignore the broad authority under section one of five in the codes overall scheme they overstate the cost to creditors and the understate the cost to debtors and they ignore the foundational importance of the fresh start a discharge violation  poses real costs on other parties and there is no basis for allocating the damage caused by the wrongdoers violation to the protected class and in this case isn't the case isn't it true that the state court and the bankruptcy court held that taggert had returned to the fray and that would therefore there would not have been a violation of the destroyed if those courts were correct but they were wrong both the state court reverse by the state appellate court and the bankruptcy court was u verse by the federal district court and i don't think it's enough the fact that they had some judicial decision maker say that conduct is permitted the question is did it actually violate the code  justification for holding somebody in contempt for doing something that two state courts have held was not a violation well first term even if those courts turned out to be wrong well even if they turn out to be wrong but i think that the justification is first that the fact that someone says that something is permissible doesn't mean that it doesn't violate the code in that it doesn't impose real costs on the protected class the section one of five doesn't have any exception for a good faith error for reasonable care and the fact that a court might agree and props unreasonably that that particular act was permitted it doesn't make it so and if congress  wanted to create that sort of good faith the reason was defensive presumably would have done so and we know that because they did something similar in section three sixty two k in three sixty two k congress looked at automatic stay viable ations the cut from the same cloth as the discharge and they said they were creating a bright line rule where any violation is automatically subject to mandatory remedies for the full cost of violation including attorneys fees so that there's no reason to think that congress has sort of reverse problem i understand your argument that the other side is permitting and then run around the district court's discretion if somebody continues in the fray or barring upon but it might be a good round of doubt a reasonable basis but it really wasn't their motivation and the district court clear because it tells you some debts but others are not discharged and secondly in a situation where the code doesn't require a debtor to go back to the bankruptcy court to get clarification on all actions only on some and this wasn't one of them so isn't there something wrong with your formulation of strict liability to well requires more discretion than either of you are what are positing or or want well let me make our position very clear because our position actually embraces the court's discretion under section one o five our position is that if the discharge is violated then under section one of five a court may impose a remedial order to remedy the violation it's in the court's discretion now the thumb on the scale would be in favor of full remedial relief  because of the damage to the discharge and the need to restore the benefits of the discharge that's how you carry out the provisions of the code it's a necessary and appropriate order but it is absolutely in the court's discretion the court can take into account the fact that the creditor had an excellent basis for thinking that this was true that the creditor saw determination under rule four thousand and seven which you're right isn't mandatory but it provides a safe harbor for those creditors who are very worried about a genuinely disputed that if you're putting into the code something that's not required well but you're basically telling if you think you're not covered you can't do with the code permits you to do you have to go for that safe harbor to be safe oh at absolutely not your honor well what we're saying is that if a creditor is concerned a creditor can go forward and collect the debt right away and by the way the vast majority of debts under the code are absolutely clear they are clearly fall from the discharge or they clearly fall from one of the exceptions to the discharge is really small category of cases where there's  clarification in most issues five twenty three i know cards out a couple where you got to go to the bankruptcy court but congress expressly gave concurrent jurisdiction to the states to do this so it's not like it's any different of a safe harbor statutorily as far as congress is concerned they're equally good so how do we account for that well i think this is how you account for that justice or such if if a creditor goes to see court and seeks a pure declaratory judgment i think all i want to point the error isn't that they feel to go to the bankruptcy court the error is that they failed to seek a declaratory judgment rather than to collect on the debt one of the areas that they violated the discharge by affirmatively seeking to collect the destroyed they should have a declaratory judgment from the state court if they had done that as as opposed to trying to actually collect then there'd be both legal and practical differences the legal difference is they wouldn't be taking an act that violates the discharge injunction they would be trying to collect debt they'd be trying to see the determination about what their rights are the crack and you do then at the same time you go into court and say here's the debt that i have i want to collect it but first i want to make sure that i can do it so i'd like a declaration of whether it's  dischargeable or not and if it is if it's not then i'd like to go ahead with my suit it seems to me that the court would like that to be done that way it's certainly more efficient well i don't think it is more efficient and half of that would be problematic and half of it wouldn't the declar judgment part wouldn't the problem is that the second you follow an affirmative action in state court you're imposing an entirely different brand of cost on the debtor the debtor has to defend the entire action they can to show up and say i want to litigate the discharge they have to defend every element of the  creditor so maybe they do but i would think most state courts judge state court judges in that situation would realize where we've got to clear up the discharge ability question first and do that well that's not what happened here and it's i think not what will happen in a lot of cases that the ultimate point is that if a creditor is really concerned then congress has a clear scheme set out you can go to rule four thousand in seven you can see clarification and guidance if you don't want to see that guidance you don't have to you can go to state court but at that point you're imposing extra costs on the debtor for the to back up a minute the statute says that the order operates as an injunction and the traditional rules of contempt like an injunction the traditional rules of injunctions they're for you know what solution of strict liability or something close to it doesn't work when the i think that the traditional rules an injunction for injunctions fall squarely on our side if you look to the court's decision  mccomb it said specifically if there's uncertainty in the decree then the burden falls on the person who's supposed to comply with the decree to make sure that their conduct comports with it and if they violate it then they that's that falls on their shoulders they act at their own rest and if they're confused about any uncertainty then they can go and seek clarification from the court that's the way it normally works there are no i found the comma very confusing case i have to admit because sometimes it speaks in your language and sometimes it speaks in mis are skills language and w r to make of that and i think i'll add on to this i mean i guess i was totally stunned that this wasn't clear what standard does apply for civil contempt in that people are citing these one hundred year old cases that are opaque it what we i was a little stunned to your honor but i think that what is clear in the bankruptcy context overwhelming wolf a majority of jurisdictions is the one that we've set out in our brief it's that if you're aware of the discharge and you violate it then you're subject to legal order under section one hundred five and if you're concerned about creating a new rule in wading into this morass the easiest way to resolve it is to look to section one of five which provides independent statutory authority to create any order that's that's broad language that's necessary or appropriate for carrying out the code now the code prohibits collection attempts it doesn't just prohibit the actual collection of debts you see attempt to collect it and the reason the code does that is it wants to make sure that debtors are put to the cost of defending suits violate the discharge the only way to restore the benefits under that to create the benefits of congress specifically provided debtors to ensure the fresh start is meaningful is to pay back the debt or who did absolutely nothing wrong who also had a good faith reason to thin any strong reason to think the discharge did apply to go back to the traditional way well would you dispute i understand that but the fair ground of doubt principle a lot of lower courts of applied that and then you think about well what's the purpose with the purposes contempt it's a severe sanction so before someone's found to be liable for such sanctions you would want some clear intent and if they had a reasonable good faith belief they were violating it that's not usually something i would say tough and still impose the sanctions do you agree with that or how do you deal with the overall purpose of the rule the fair ground  tivo decision from the federal circuit the federal circuit looked at the principals both the mccomb animal order and they said that they specifically rejected the proposition that there is a good faith objective lee reasonable defense to the actual violation of the injunction the one where they incorporate the fair ground of doubt rule is they say does the injunction actually apply so it's not a rule that says you can violate an injunction and then you're excused because you had good faith saying we'll construe the injunction not to rea your conduct so that all this really two different things well i think they are two different things because look at how it would play out here here you have a statutory injunction and the bankruptcy code and it i don't think court's in a position to say that the code means different things in different cases in fact any ambiguity in the code is construed against an exception to the discharge the exceptions are supposed to be true exceptions so any creditor who looks in sees a debt is sort of marginal then at that point they're they're to they don't have to have this is a declaratory judgment act and not everyone goes and invokes it before the breach of contract or violate statute it's entirely optional but it's a way to make sure that if someone doesn't fact go forward and they're not sure what the code means and they're suing  rest that they might be wrong you make it sound easy with there are a lot of states because sprit for real cross section of states who say your rule would really hamper our real world collection efforts how do you respond are they just wrong about that i think i think they're wrong and i think the concerns are overstated first they don't account for the fact that the world again that we're not proposing something now it's actually the government response that are proposing something that this is been the majority rule in the overwhelming number of jurisdictions nationwide we haven't seen any concrete showing that this has a material effect on the states the other problem with their summation is they're talking about all of the debts everywhere in all bankruptcies and again the code is very precise and when congress said this operates as an injunction they knew that the it would operate as an injunction for the provisions they set out in section five twenty three and five twenty four so congress thought this was sufficiently precise and it does in fact provide clear guidance for the vast majority of debts we're talking about the very small subset where there is a genuine dispute and where there is a genuine spirit the seats haven't said why they can't access rule four thousand and seven they've suggested that in some cases it might be too expensive but the only way that a three hundred fifty dollars filing fee for something that is supposed to be streamlined inefficient and economical is actually too expensive is if they have no intent of litigating the issue anyway and if that's the case in any time they try to collect even under their own rule a debtor could say this is been discharged in the state will back down if they're actually willing to litigate an affirmative suit to collect that debt they also if you'd be willing to litigate under will four thousand and seven and reduce the costs imposed on the debtor and impose on other parties and so i think if you look at the the concerns that congress had with the discharge they understood that debtors exit bankruptcy often still in a fragile economic state they have their finances a little bit back in order but it's the rare debtor that can go and hire an attorney to resist the discharge unless they know that the attorney can be compensated at the end of the day if they prove right the strength of your rule i would say is in the realm of compensatory damages but here there were punitive damages that well as well and what justification would there be for that well the to be clear the punitive damages here were it was a two thousand dollar war it's really not the the bulk of this is debate and it was imposed for a very specific reason after the state court awarded you know forty five thousand dollars and fifty thousand dollars of attorney's fees was reversed the respondents didn't vacate it they kept it on the books and it took a specific or a specific order from the court to go and vacate that and because the court had to go through that effort he imposed a small two thousand dollars punitive damages which he said was designed to coerce feature compliance with the with independent grounds first is that because this operates as an injunction that under macos we think that is the best reading of the court's traditional contempt authority but also the statutory powers under one hundred five and while my friends do point out that there are certain exceptions to the discharge that are mandatory you have to go back to a court in order to prevent those debts from being discharged there's absolutely nothing that says that four thousand and seven can't be used to provide guidance in cases when something have to be by a lawyer  there was an infringement suit so you had a regional product that was judged in french and was bound by the injunction and then the infringer modify the product and so then the need dispute is does this modified product fit within that original injunction and what the court said is th patentee has two options they can see contempt under the injunction or they can follow any lawsuit and the court said both of those options were available to the patentee but they advised that it would be most appropriate to file any suit if there's a fairground of doubt that is not a categorical threshold per se rule at all it actually kept both options open to the patentee and again that involves something that's very different than what we have here that involves a judge made injunction when a judge crafts the subset of rules on an ad hoc basis to govern specific disputes it takes it that process out of the democratic process there is greater concern for confusion in arbitrariness this is a statutory injunction congress passed the language for section five twenty three for the determination necessary or appropriate to enforce or implement the court orders so why doesn't it but that bankruptcy judge of the power to say well we think in your case it does in fact require considerable damages because you are on the brink where oh and some of the case say no he says compensatory damages in some of the in other words up to the bankruptcy judge what do you think of that well the it's again our position is that the court does have that discretion we think there should be a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of full remedial relief because that is really what's necessary to carry out the discharge and the time hit by the less than f remedial relief you're not really in forcing the benefits that the debtor was entitled to under the discharge it's response from the government that are saying at the threshold if they can conjure up any fair ground of doubt  will that their contention though is that the court would not have discretion section one to five is a broad equitable remedy and he can for his broad discretion on the bankruptcy court to carry out the code but i think it's unusual to take that flexible remedy and to cut it off as in a categorical way any time a party has some reasonable basis for violating the code even though there was an even more reasonable basis to know that their action would violate the discharge if i could reserve the balance of my time thank you counsel chief justice and may please the court i should first say the ground is somewhat shifted in this case beneath us since the time we filed our brief now it appears petitioner is really not talking about civil contempt even though that is the question presented on which this court granted serve for civil contempt we think that the text of five twenty four is what controls the text of five twenty four says that a discharge order operates as an injunction and not to borrow just as frankfurters horticultural analogy but that brings all the old soil with it the word injunction and so the government's position is that the ordinary rules that govern injunctions injunctive relief and the discipline for violating injunctive orders in the ordinary civil context apply in the bankruptcy context now the ninth circuit below had a bankruptcy specific rule in which good faith belief even if a reasonable could immunize from civil contempt it appears nobody agrees with that rule anymore and so i don't need to spend much time on it but petitioner as a rule also appears to be a bankruptcy specific rule and that our point of disagreement with petitioner in that light takes into account the deep policy in the bankruptcy code to grant relief to the honest debtor and i just don't see why it's so hard for a cry pre shared that you're representing the largest creditor in the country but i don't see why it is so hard for a creditor if he has any doubt to go in the safe harbor and get it get a clean ticket a clean bill of health and instead of just you know going after the newly released debtor who's getting you for a fresh start is bush get a fresh start all the sudden they're the same people who were you know how to him before why is it so hard to if you have it i think if you have a safe harbor a pretty strict measures might be strict liability but a pretty rigorous standard before you can get out of contempt seems to me to make a lot of sense so a number of responses that first of all i think giving the debtor a fresh start is certainly one of the goals of the bankruptcy code but another goal that's incorporated into the code in the rules is to balance creditor and debtor right and congress made a judgment that certain debts would not be discharged and that the creditors retain rights to it so to say the debtor deserves a fresh start somewhat begs the question a fresh start from what the debtor does not get a fresh start from a debt that has not been discharged and so really what i put the whole point is here is you who who bears the risk of the fact that there's some doubt about whether debt is discharged or not the person who is supposed to get  all the traditional rules under under under the bankruptcy rules of witnesses evidence etc so i don't think it's that quick but but more important in terms of who bears a risk in the cost that sounds a lot like sort of compensatory damages but for better or worse in this country we follow the american rule and it really is this case exemplifies what positional really wants are attorneys fees but that is not traditionally under the american rule a form of make hole remedial relief it just isn't even though in the real world we all understand that you have to pay your attorney which is a good thing but and that that's likely to be the bulk of the cost for the debtor who has just emerged from bankruptcy the fact is it is not a form of make whole relief and so again we made this point in our brief and i think petitioner picks up on it a little bit in the reply and today which is we agree that under section one hundred five a bankruptcy court has the authority to to give remedial relief that short of civil contempt one of the difficulties i think for your side of the cases the decision in mccomb which is rather hardline view of civil contempt it seems to me that one possible answer and i just want your thoughts on this is that mccomb dealt with a situation where the you had a rather confirmations party that already disobeyed several orders would you agree that the standard there may be a little different than in the first citation as well and we believe the bankruptcy courts would retain that kind of power the instant that they were worried about who bears the burden of risk it may shift over time based on behavior that is certainly true it wouldn't we embrace mccomb we think mccomb and stone paving are perfectly consistent with each other stone paving says civil contempt is a severe remedy and it shouldn't be imposed where there's a fair ground of doubt about whether the injunction actually prohibits the challenge conduct now we can quibble over the words but i think the key point of stone paving is it's an objective test purely objective mccomb reinforces that by saying that subjective intent of the also doesn't matter when imposing civil contempt those two rules harmonized perfectly and that is essentially the rule that the government sets forth today could could you explain to me mr joshi what the differences between your rule and the respondents rule and whether it think we want to stand behind a purely objective test if objective leave the creditors position is reasonable and there is you know there's a basis in law for it then we would say that's enough it doesn't matter what the subjective going to say is that the factors of finder of fact might have to to find to find subjective good faith belief that's reasonable for example here's the case law i looked at here the treatise is i read it here's what you know  traditional practice is in bankruptcy that lead to subjective good faith those are probably the same factors will be overlap substantially with the factors that would be considered in an objective analysis under so could i understand it a little bit better because that your statement in your brief confused me a little bit but you're saying that the facts that lead to subjective good faith would also be indicators of objective reasonable and yes you're not saying as i understand it although you do say in your brief you say in your brief that belief itself is relevant to objective reasonableness so the belief might have probative evidentiary value to the extent it is highly correlated with those facts which will overlap in the objective analysis so that ma easy to apply so look i'm i'm not going to stand in your way if you want to close the door that i've left open for the for the evidentiary value of subject of good faith belief we think the test should be objective and that's because that i the test in the ordinary civil context and because under the bankruptcy code congress gave no indication that it wanted to deviate from the traditional rules governing injunctions injunctive relief and civil contempt to enforce its injunctive orders the bankruptcy context or at least this bankruptcy context from the ordinary civil context we think the same rule should apply just to be clear on this reasonable good faith but we've articulation respond how would you alter that to say reasonable belief reasonable leave might work or simply adopt a text in california artificial stone paving and say where is an objective matter there is a fairground of doubt about whether the injunction prohibits the challenge conduct then civil contempt is unavailable other how is fair ground different than a reasonable belief that the discharge order to not apply to the conduct they may well land in the same place i think our a objection if you will is to the word belief we just think the subjective beliefs are not something that the courts need to or really ought to be probing those reasonable to conclude that the discharge ordered not a part of a conduct i think we wouldn't have a problem with that there are discourse ordinary practice when announcing a new rule is to remain and especially because none of the lower courts have applied the rule we set forth here today but there remains some you of course have jurisdiction to reach it but we believe there remain some legal and factual issues to decide so if you decide that first of all no court the ninth circuit didn't rule on whether they had actually violated the discharge injunction and you would need to decide that in the first instance thank you counsel mr chief justice and man please the court we acted reasonably and in good faith notwithstanding that we were held in contempt of court which included attorneys fees and punitive damages and that's just wrong in light of the decades of this court's established precedent and what's required to hold someone  contempt of court and i think i'd like to think that one thirty tests need to be modified i think the court should say on reasonable good faith or i'm sorry reasonable good faith belief and that's not exactly what the ninth circuit said so we think the court should go mind is what if some creditor had a not well founded subjective belief but he was objectively reasonable objection to reasonable but bad face he didn't do any work didn't do any due diligence he just filed turned out he was right be reasonable that happens i would have thought you'd want to protect that creditor but your test wouldn't and the governments would and so you're toast in that respect at least is under inclusive compared to the governments and that surprised me coming from creditors so help me out with that sure we don't think that there's much daylight at all between our test and the government particularly in this case weren't good faith is undisputed but i see your question and frankly we got the consideration of good faith and bad faith from this court's decisions because i think there's we've talked a lot about the california artificial paving case but there are other cases where this court has considered what's appropriate for contempt the rules that apply to contempt and in california paving the court talked about fair ground of doubt that in additional case all right well i will i will spot she that our cases may not be entirely clear on this point but i guess i'm wondering  suman we were writing on a blank slate would you disagree with the government's test and if so why an objective standard would be fine by us we just read the government's cases especially because contempt is i'm sorry the court's cases especially because contempt is an equitable remedy to allow for consideration of good faith and bad faith and certainly there were some questions about if someone were acting purely in bad faith is that the kind of thing that could be sanctioned we knew the court is left open but if you wanted to use a purely objective test that would be fine by us i think you are going to  few of the other cases yes i actually wanted to point the court i think to four cases that we think are particularly relevant the first is california artificial paving which has been addressed in great detail the second is the international longshoremen's case that we talked about which we think is very important because it talks about what it means to be held in contempt and the prerequisites for contempt and the court said contempt is for a violation of a court order by some by one who fully understands its meaning but chooses to ignore its mandate contempt is when you when the person knows what they're supposed to do and they refuse to do it and that's just not a case when there's an objective reasonable good thing i believe and then the other two cases that i wanted to mention which we featured in the briefs are the watts case and the men s case and both were situations in which the court held that because of  faith reasonable belief the person could not be held in contempt the mess case was about an attorney who counseled his client to invoke the fifth amendment with respect to a subpoena and the court talked about both good faith we quote the language in our brief and it talked about reasonableness the watch case i think is even more interesting because it was a bankruptcy case and it had to do with there being a state bankruptcy or a state order about the possession of property and the lawyer in that case relied on the state court order and then the federal court held him in contempt and this court said he relied on the state court order he had a good faith reasonable belief he can't be held in contempt and frankly that's the pretty much the same thing as this christmas diversity in the universe of cases that we're talking about we know that the discharge injunction has been violated we know that the debtor has suffered harm as a result now let's give you that there was entirely good faith on the part of the creditor but we still have a question of who should bear the burden of the harm and from the debtors perspective aside this injunction has been violated i didn't do anything wrong as between the victim of the violation and the person who with all of the good faith in the world perpetrated the violation why shouldn't we look to the person who perpetrated the violation i mean that's a terrific question it really gets to a point that we haven't explored much today which is the difference between remedying the violation of a discharge order and the additional  separate sanction of holding someone in contempt we agree that if someone violates the discharge order that they have to comply going forward and if they say obtain property under the discharge order they would return the property it's that it's just the regular kind of make whole relief that applies in these circumstances but what petitioner is asking for here is to hold us in contempt which is a serious sanction and you get attorney's fees and i think as the representative from the government made clear attorney's fees are not normally considered compensation in fact this court has been crystal clear because it's gotten opportunities where people have come to it and said look as an equitable matter just give us some attorney's fees that was the alyeska case cited in the briefs also the baker botts case when the court would be sanctioned under contempt of monetary sanction right if a person meets the standard from for contempt they could face monetary sanctions including i seems to me that wife can of course say well ok i'm going to fine you because of your contemptuous behavior and you know how much should it be with the amount of the attorney's fees seems to be a pretty reasonable number doesn't mean that he's finally american rule means that he's looking for some basis to judge how much the fine should be i agree with that i think it's just the difference between remedying an order violation and holding us in contempt and holding us in contempt requires a particular finding that we knew what we were supposed to do and we didn't do it and in this case particularly went to a state court and got an order in our favor we did not meet that standard so we completely agree that we have to comply with the with the discharge order going forward what we're saying is that the prerequisite that this court is set out in cases like international longshoremen california artificial paving and the others that i mentioned just hasn't been met and something you didn't do which you could easily have done is get get a ruling  so we we were in state court as as the court knows from the briefs there was already a business dispute and the question that arose which was the one about the fact that the discharge order was whether we could get an award of attorney's fees based on our contract we're already in state court everyone agrees that the to decide that issue we had a limited time to bring the attorneys fish to decide which issue to decide whether that is a discharged under the bankruptcy so i don't know why it would make any sense to have to go to the federal court when we're already in state court and decide the issue and decide in our favor and i just i just want to make sure that the court understands it's a safe harbor well but that a couple of i think there are a couple of answers to that first of all i think there's the answer in terms of what congress intended and then i think there's a policy answer so in terms of what congress intended as we've discussed congress did not require advance determinations it anticipated that these questions would be litigated in collection actions but then second congress provided for  recognized that sometimes there are questions about discharge ability of debts that depend on state law and this is a point that the state's amicus brief i think makes very well about how there can be state law questions about community property and other things that actually some of these exceptions to discharge are unclear but just moving beyond that because i think you're asking about the policy rationale behind this i think we need to think about if congress were making a decision about this what interest it would consider because it's always when it's putting together bankruptcy provisions trying to trying to balance the various interests first of all we start with the interests of debtors now i think it's undisputed that if there were a four thousand and seven proceeding the debtors would have to pay their own attorneys fees but issue has not disputed that so the debtor is not any better off in fact debtors have to pay their own attorney fees and all of chapter seven proceedings unless the attorney was appointed by the trustee that's the court's decision from about fifteen years ago in libya versus u s trustee so we're just looking at helping the debtor owing to a four thousand and seven proceeding does not make the debtor all better off in terms of attorney's fees because he has to pay those attorneys fees and then we look at the interests of the creditors does it help or hurt the creditors will the states and the federal government are coming in and telling you that that's going to seriously chill creditors to have to go through that procedure and not to chill them from collecting and debts that they would generally it's not so much it's not so much the procedure it's the the standard the standard that the petitioners are asking for certainly benefits debtors but the it's consistent with the general policy of a fresh start or not is another story but it's and the existence of the safe harbor i would say would makes the rigorous standard more acceptable right and putting back to the first part of your question which is to say that this would help debtors i just want the court to really think about how is this helping debtors to have this four thousand and seven proceeding it would provide an answer about the discharge ability of the debt but it would not make the debtor any better off because he's paying his own attorney's fees and then if you look at the harms to creditors those harms are significant in terms of the chilling of creditors and the states have discussed that in their amicus brief and the federal government is here to tell you that and then i think you should also consider the answers of the courts who are going to be burdened by these procedures in a way that congress didn't intend you know it does have some chilling effect on creditors and it doesn't surprise me the creditors don't like that but that chilling effect makes them since allowing the creditors to proceed on debts that may or may not be dischargeable it seems to me perfectly reasonable to have them bear the risk make have them make a careful choice i understand that and i think that the difference in terms of bearing the risk is the difference between compensation and the additional sanction of of contempt we agree that they bear the risk and that if they guess wrong they have to comply with the discharge order and there has to be make or relief in terms of compliance going forward and in terms of giving back any property or money that was gotten from the debtor but what petitioner is asking for here is contempt the question presented is about contempt we were under an order of contempt and that's a serious personal stigmatizing sanction this court has said that in multiple cases the seriousness of contempt that's not what is says it's many cases as i understand it in tell me if i'm wrong but in the automatic state context under what is it three sixty two k or something correct there where if if there's a violation of the automatic stay and there was you know and it's sort of an inch an intentional act that resulted in that violation the violator would be on the hook for any damages that resulted irrespective of the reasonableness of  his of his beliefs do you understand that to work that way and if you do why shouldn't we have the exact same rule in the two contexts in other words why shouldn't we say if you violate the automatic stay if you violate the discharge injunction he should be treated exactly the same way under the same standard with respect to the costs that you impose right i think there are really two reasons there's different at different textual basis in terms of how congress addressed this in their different policies underlying it so in terms of the different textual basis in our situation we're talking about the courts necessary and appropriate authority to enforce something that operates as an injunction and that pulls in the content principles that we've talked about the fact that congress was so specific when it wanted to allow this payment of attorney's fees and the three in the in the context of section three sixty two k we actually shows we think shows that it's different from this case because congress used different language it wanted to make sure that there would be payment of these fees so it put that language in there and then second we think that there's a significant policy reason to distinguish between the two the automatic stay is entered at the beginning of the case it's automatic it's temporary it benefits all of the parties and so we think that reasonably it could be the case that congress would decide that that would be that there would be a more hard and fast rule in that context than in this context but i think this case really illustrates why in the context of a discharge order questions will arise and that contempt is just not appropriate if someone has a reasonable belief or good faith reasonable belief that the discharge order doesn't apply to them in particular in this case just to make sure that it's clear all we did was go to a state court where we were already in proceedings and be forthright with that state court about the fact that there had been a bankruptcy discharge and that we had a contractual right to attorneys fees and that we weren't sure whether we could get the attorneys fees under that contract and we asked the court to decide that issue and petitioner agreed that the court had jurisdiction under concurrent jurisdiction to decide that issue and so it just seems to me that it can't be the case that you can hold someone in contempt of court which is this very serious thing for asking a court whether the discharge order applies to it it's contempt of court for violating the discharge order just for asking the court to resolve that open legal question that just can't be contempt and we think that that really shows the need for the kind of rule that we and the government have been discussing just to follow up on just discourse which is question from earlier it sounded like you don't object to an objective standard but you would rolled in good faith based on some workers this is an accurate yes and i think you know it's helpful just to think about the position that courts are in the normal civil contempt context and what they do when they're faced with a request for contempt so someone files a motion for contempt and what the court typically does and what this court has done in the cases we cited in the case in the case of the came to this court the courts also did was enter an order to show cause ok and the order to show cause says come to the court and give me your reasons explain to me what you did and then the party comes in and says well we can't we can't actually follow the order or we don't think the order applied to us and the court listens to the reasons from the person and basically decides whether they're good reasons or not and so what we're talking about a good faith objective belief or just a objectively reasonable belief it's just the court listening to the reasons and it's deciding that they're good enough that you shouldn't impose the various very serious things when do you think that a reason could not be objectively an objective ground that could be still reasonable meaning i understand your answer to justice courses which is that somebody doesn't do research and just says i don't want to pay i'm just going to do this and it turns out later that a ground could exist you're suggesting that your formulation might not get that person off so the reverse what could be a reasonable good faith belief if objectively the ground is no it's not just to flee there's no fair grounds of doubt well if i understand the question you know i think there's a there's a spectrum really a reasonable niche in the case that seems to me like it's per se reasonable is if you go to a court and ask it to resolve the issue in your favor and it says you win which is what happened in this case but imagine also that there's a circuit precedent that applies to you a little you also through well in this case you know where where kids are position is consistent with what the state court in the bankruptcy court did so it's supportive of us and not up a fighting situation but you know to answer your question more generally contempt is an equitable remedy and it's one where the courts did you know what i was suggesting to just do what i was suggesting to justice cavanagh which is really just consider like is your reason a good one or not you know tell me your reasons and those could be a variety of reasons it could be reliance on precedent it could be a reliance on something  state or federal administrative agency told you you know there are a variety of potential reasons but you know really the point we're trying to make is that because contempt is such a big deal and such a serious stigmatizing sanction that you need to leave the door open and this is the kind of this question about you know when i contempt appropriate that something that the district courts and now the bankruptcy courts are fairly familiar with decision because your standard is slightly different more than slightly than the ninth circuit's why shouldn't we rather than sure three three answers really first of all the court certainly has the power to go ahead and set out the correct rule and then apply it it's done that recently for example in the air and liquid systems case so then the question is is that appropriate in this case and the answer we think is yes because under any standard like our standard or the government standards we think it's pretty clear that reliance on a state court order is one that would be considered reasonable and there's no dispute at all about good faith in this case and that's what the ninth circuit said that we did and the bankruptcy panel appellate panel they said that we relied on the state court order under california paving that's like pretty much per se a good faith and then just the third thing you know bankruptcy point bankruptcy proceedings are supposed to be quick and efficient and let people move on with their lives and this contem proceedings has been going on since two thousand and eleven i think it's fair to say everyone wants to move on with their lives you know particularly the spouse of the deceased attorney in this case who hasn't been able to close her husband's estate even though he passed away in two thousand and thirteen and so this does seem like a case  where it would make sense for the court to just go ahead and apply the rule i understand of course that this is a court of review not first view but there's not really work left here for the lower courts to do and so we would greatly appreciate it if you could  thank you council guys are three minutes remaining thank you mr chief justice first for the american role congress did not think that these fees were fees as fees or fees damages if you look at three sixty two kate specifically says th courts can award actual damages including attorneys fees because they understood that this context the fees constitute the actual harm if you look through the rule four thousand and seven this definitely will help that hers if this is an efficient streamline economical not true they filed an affirmative fee petition seeking the fees it was the combination of the entire litigation in this in the trial court where the state court finally made a determination which was clearly incorrect we've outlined in our reply brief why they're clearly in in this case so we've encouraged the court to look at that although i do think it makes more sense to send it back down to the ninth circuit if you dropped an objective lee reasonable standard which i hope you won't because you would obliterate the fresh start this is an object only reasonable standard is telling any creditor that they can come up with a reasonable basis for collecting they should absolutely go forward and collect the you either will have the debt or acquiescing threw up their hands because they don't have the funds to resist or the debtor or will end up resisting and the creditor kno cost proposition if they lose in terms of balancing that are incredible rights congress did balance that incredible rights they did in the code by creating one thousand specific exceptions to the discharge but when they did impose the discharge for everything else they meant courts to take it seriously which is why they created an injunction to protect the discharge in terms of chilling effect on the creditors i think we've already explained why this won't a chill any creditor legitimately trying to collect to claim their will for the thousand seven proceeding is far more efficient both of the debtor and for the creditor and there's no reason they can't access that safe harbor if they really do have any doubts about their rights a final point is that not all contempt orders are created equal first this isn't even really contempt this is a statutory remedial order under section one o five everyone can distinguish pretty readily as a matter of common sense between a contempt order and or for bad faith conduct and when saying that you violated the code you might have done it innocently you might have done it in good faith but we know from  enforce that we know from one of five courts of the power to enter any order necessary appropriate to carry out the provisions of the code one way to carry out the discharge is to make sure that when a creditors conduct violates a discharge imposes the exact costs that congress said debtors were entitled to avoid the only way to carry out the discharge is in fact to enforce a code by reimbursing the debtor it certainly doesn't make any sense to take the innocent victim who also had a reasonable good faith belief that the discharge did apply and was correct with the cost of the creditors mistake thank you counsel the case