PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-1385

In re: MATTHEW ALAN JENKINS,

Debtor.

-----------------------------------------------

MATTHEW ALAN JENKINS, formerly doing business as Shephard 

Service Company,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

LINDA WRIGHT SIMPSON,

Appellee,

JAMES T. WARD, SR.,

Trustee - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western 

District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Robert J. Conrad, 

Jr., District Judge. (3:13-cv-00192-RJC)

Argued: March 24, 2015 Decided: April 27, 2015

Before MOTZ, KEENAN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Motz wrote 

the opinion, in which Judge Keenan and Judge Thacker joined.
2

Beth Richardson, SOWELL, GRAY, STEPP, & LAFFITTE, LLC, Columbia, 

South Carolina, for Appellant. Linda Wright Simpson, UNITED 

STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT, Charlotte, North Carolina; A. Cotten 

Wright, GRIER FURR & CRISP, PA, Charlotte, North Carolina, for 

Appellees.
3

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

After Matthew Alan Jenkins filed a voluntary petition for 

relief under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, the Trustee and 

the Bankruptcy Administrator (collectively, “the Trustee”) filed 

a complaint objecting to Jenkins’s discharge and then moved for 

summary judgment. The bankruptcy court granted the motion and 

entered an order denying the discharge. The district court 

affirmed. Jenkins appeals, arguing that the Trustee’s complaint 

should have been dismissed as untimely. For the reasons that 

follow, we agree and so reverse and remand for further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

On April 11, 2012, acting pro se, Jenkins filed a petition 

for Chapter 7 bankruptcy relief. In his Statement of Financial 

Affairs, filed with the bankruptcy court on April 24, Jenkins 

disclosed receipt of more than $235,000 in lawsuit proceeds in 

the two years preceding the filing of his petition, but offered 

no information as to the current status of those funds. On May 

14, the Trustee convened a meeting of the creditors at which 

Jenkins testified that the proceeds from the lawsuits had been 

deposited into his wife’s bank account, an account to which he 

admitted he had access, but of which he claimed not to be an 

owner.
4

Citing Jenkins’s failure to provide necessary information, 

as well as his general lack of cooperation, counsel for the 

Trustee requested an extension of the deadline to file a 

complaint objecting to Jenkins’s discharge. The Bankruptcy Code 

permits a trustee to file such a complaint, 11 U.S.C. 

§ 727(c)(1), but absent judicial permission, the Bankruptcy 

Rules require that it be filed within 60 days after the first 

date set for the creditors’ meeting. Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4004(a). 

The bankruptcy court here granted the Trustee’s request and 

extended the deadline to “sixty days beyond . . . whenever the 

341 [creditors’] meeting is concluded.” J.A. 91.1

The creditors’ meeting was then scheduled to reconvene on 

July 11. Jenkins, however, neither responded to the Trustee’s 

emails regarding the continuation date, nor attended the July 11

meeting. As a result, the bankruptcy court found Jenkins in 

contempt. At the rescheduled creditors’ meeting on July 19,

Jenkins appeared by telephone and thus purged the contempt. But 

 1 References to J.A. refer to the Joint Appendix filed by 

the parties in this appeal. The bankruptcy court followed its 

oral grant of the motion with a text order that reiterated the 

deadline had been extended, but set the new date at “sixty (60) 

days after the meeting of creditors pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 341 

has been adjourned,” rather than concluded. J.A. 117 (emphasis 

added). However, the parties agree that the bankruptcy court 

erred in using the word “adjourned,” and that the court intended 

the deadline to be sixty days beyond the meeting’s conclusion, 

in accordance with the court’s oral announcement. See

Appellant’s Br. 3 n.1; Appellee’s Br. 14 n.16; Reply Br. 8 n.6.
5

he had still failed to provide the Trustee with some necessary 

information by that date, and so, before ending the telephonic

meeting, counsel for the Trustee announced that she was “not 

going to conclude the meeting today.” J.A. 471. Counsel 

explained, “I am going to talk with the trustee and, if he 

determines that we can adjourn the meeting, we will file a 

notice of that, but officially the meeting is continued.” J.A.

471. No notice of a continued meeting was ever filed, nor did 

the meeting ever reconvene.

On September 26, 2012, sixty-nine days after the July 19 

creditors’ meeting, the Trustee filed a complaint, objecting to 

Jenkins’s discharge in bankruptcy. Jenkins responded, asserting 

that the Trustee’s complaint was “barred by the applicable 

statute of limitations.” J.A. 161. The Trustee moved for 

summary judgment, which the bankruptcy court granted. The court 

found the Trustee’s complaint timely and denied Jenkins a 

discharge.

Jenkins appealed to the district court, contending there,

as he does before us, that the bankruptcy court erred in finding 

the Trustee’s complaint timely filed. The district court

disagreed and affirmed the judgment of the bankruptcy court.

Jenkins timely noted this appeal, and we have jurisdiction 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 158(d)(1). When considering “an appeal 

from a bankruptcy proceeding, we apply the same standard of 
6

review that the district court applied when it reviewed the 

bankruptcy court’s decision.” In re Nieves, 648 F.3d 232, 237 

(4th Cir. 2011) (per curiam). Thus, “[t]he legal conclusions of 

both the district court and the bankruptcy court are reviewed de 

novo and the factual findings of the bankruptcy court are 

reviewed for clear error.” Id.2

II.

The Bankruptcy Code provides that a bankruptcy court “shall

grant [a qualifying] debtor a discharge” of his debts, thereby 

extinguishing creditors’ claims. 11 U.S.C. § 727(a) (emphasis 

added). By “free[ing] the debtor from all debts existing at the 

commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings” except those 

exempted by statute, Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 447 (2004), 

discharge provides the fresh start that is the hallmark of our 

bankruptcy system.

Not all debtors qualify for such relief, however. Indeed, 

the Code supplies “ample authority to deny the dishonest debtor 

a discharge.” Law v. Siegel, 134 S. Ct. 1188, 1198 (2014)

(citing 11 U.S.C. §§ 727(a)(2)-(6)). Thus, “[t]he trustee, a 

creditor, or the United States trustee may object to the 

 2 Though Jenkins represented himself before both the 

bankruptcy court and the district court, we appointed counsel to 

represent him before this court, a duty his appointed counsel 

discharged ably.
7

granting of a discharge” by filing a complaint with the 

bankruptcy court. 11 U.S.C. § 727(c)(1); see also Fed. R. 

Bankr. P. 4004 (outlining procedure for objecting to discharge). 

Ordinarily, such a complaint must “be filed no later than 60 

days after the first date set for the meeting of creditors under 

§ 341(a).” Id. at 4004(a). But “the court may,” as it did 

here, “for cause extend the time to object” on motion of “any 

party in interest.” Id. at 4004(b).

The consequence of missing the deadline to object is 

severe. With respect to a Chapter 7 debtor, “on expiration of 

the time[] fixed for objecting to discharge . . . the court 

shall forthwith grant the discharge,” subject only to limited 

exceptions not applicable here. Id. at 4004(c)(1). 

Accordingly, because Jenkins challenges the denial of his 

discharge on timeliness grounds only, a great deal hinges on the 

resolution of that issue.3 We must decide whether the Trustee 

filed a timely objection; in doing so, we necessarily determine 

 3 The Trustee’s contention that Jenkins waived his 

timeliness argument by failing to raise it before the bankruptcy 

court is meritless. In Jenkins’s response to the Trustee’s 

complaint, he averred that the complaint was “barred by the 

applicable statute of limitations.” J.A. 161. Proceeding pro 

se, Jenkins was entitled to a liberal construction of his 

pleadings. See Jackson v. Lightsey, 775 F.3d 170, 178 (4th Cir. 

2014). Under such a construction, Jenkins certainly preserved 

the timeliness defense he now advances.
8

whether the claims of Jenkins’s creditors survive or are 

extinguished.

But first, because the bankruptcy court established a 

deadline of sixty days beyond the conclusion of the creditors’

meeting, we must determine when the creditors’ meeting 

concluded. Unfortunately, neither the Bankruptcy Code nor the 

Bankruptcy Rules expressly address this question. The Code, 11 

U.S.C. § 341, mandates a creditors’ meeting and directs both its 

content and its attendees. And Rule 2003 supplies the 

procedures by which such a meeting must progress. But neither 

instructs a trustee as to how to conclude a meeting, nor points 

to any circumstances under which a meeting must be deemed 

concluded. The parties offer competing contentions as to these 

questions -- and thus as to the date when the sixty-day clock 

began to run in this case.

On the one hand, the Trustee argues that “[t]he key date”

is not the date of the meeting’s conclusion at all, but rather 

“the date that all parties to whom the Extension Order applied 

received notice that the creditors’ meeting had concluded.” 

Appellee’s Br. 18 (emphasis added). “Only then,” he argues, 

“would the clock start ticking on the 60-day extended deadline 

for discharge complaints.” Id. The Trustee waffles in 

pinpointing this date, suggesting it might be either August 7, 

2012, when the bankruptcy court entered a text order indicating 
9

Jenkins had purged his contempt charge, or May 9, 2013, when the 

Trustee himself filed a Notice of Conclusion. Id. at 19-20. 

Either way, the Trustee maintains, he filed a complaint prior to 

expiration of the 60-day period.

On the other hand, Jenkins maintains that the creditors’

meeting concluded on July 19, 2012, when the Trustee failed to 

adjourn the meeting to a stated later date and time. 

Appellant’s Br. 18. He contends that a meeting not properly 

adjourned to a stated date and time, as specified in Rule 

2003(e), must “[l]ogically” be concluded. Id. Accordingly, 

Jenkins argues, the Trustee’s complaint should have been 

dismissed as untimely.

III.

We agree with Jenkins and hold that the creditors’ meeting 

concluded on July 19, 2012, and thus that the Trustee’s 

objection to discharge was not timely.

We recognize of course that the Trustee did not intend to 

conclude the meeting on July 19. To be sure, the Trustee’s 

counsel could not have been more clear on that point. See J.A.

471 (“I am not going to conclude the meeting today. . . . 

[O]fficially the meeting is continued.”). Moreover, the Trustee 

was entitled to adjourn the meeting to a later date and time. 

See Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2003(e) (providing that a creditors’ 
10

meeting may be “adjourned,” meaning continued). But the 

Bankruptcy Rules supply clear procedures on how to do so, none 

of which were followed here.

Rule 2003(e) provides, in its entirety: “The meeting may 

be adjourned from time to time by announcement at the meeting of 

the adjourned date and time. The presiding official shall 

promptly file a statement specifying the date and time to which 

the meeting is adjourned.” The presiding official in this case 

neither announced an adjourned date and time, nor filed a 

statement specifying as much. And the Trustee never sought to 

rectify this omission and never attempted to reconvene the 

creditors’ meeting after July 19. The meeting therefore 

concluded on that date.

Arguing to the contrary, the Trustee asks us to consider

only whether “the trustee’s actions in continuing [the] 

creditors’ meeting [were] reasonable and necessary to timely 

move [the] case forward.” Appellee’s Br. 34-35. Under such an 

approach, the Trustee would have us weigh several factors to 

determine if his “delay in concluding the meeting of the 

creditors” was justifiable. Id. at 34 (emphasis added). But 

this formulation fatally relies on the validity of its own 

premise -- i.e., that the meeting’s conclusion was somehow 

delayed beyond July 19, 2012. Accepting this formulation would 

require us first to accept that the meeting was successfully 
11

continued on that date rather than concluded. Thus, we cannot

even apply the Trustee’s proposed inquiry unless we agree that a 

creditors’ meeting may be continued or adjourned sine die, 

“[w]ith no day being assigned . . . for resumption of a 

meeting.” See Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). Neither 

the text of Rule 2003 nor the relevant case law supports such a 

conclusion.

The history of the Rule offers some critical guidance. 

Prior to 2011, Rule 2003(e) provided only that “[t]he meeting 

may be adjourned from time to time by announcement at the 

meeting of the adjourned date and time without further written 

notice.” Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2003(e) (2010) (emphasis added). 

But the Rule was amended in 2011 to eliminate the phrase 

“without further written notice,” and to add the requirement 

that “[t]he presiding official shall promptly file a statement 

specifying the date and time to which the meeting is adjourned.”

Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2003(e) (current version).

The Rule now speaks in terms that are plainly mandatory --

“the presiding official shall promptly file a statement.” Id.

(emphasis added). This language prohibits the practice of 

adjournment sine die. As one leading treatise has noted, the 

provision added by the 2011 amendment “is designed to prevent 

indefinite adjournment.” 9 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 2003.05 n.3

(Alan N. Resnick & Henry J. Sommer eds., 16th ed. 2014); see 
12

also id. ¶ 2003.05 (“The trustee may not indefinitely continue a 

meeting of creditors.”). To follow the Trustee’s approach would 

require us to ignore this prohibition and hold that the Trustee 

could do precisely what the Rule seeks to prevent.

Nor, contrary to the Trustee’s contention, does precedent 

compel his conclusion. In fact, except in the case at hand, it 

appears that no court has both ordered that the deadline for a 

creditor’s objection to discharge run from the conclusion of the 

creditors’ meeting and then considered whether a complaint met 

that deadline.

That being said, we are not entirely without guidance from 

case law. Just as the Bankruptcy Rules limit the time in which 

objections to discharge may be filed, so too do they limit the 

time in which a “party in interest” may object to the “list of 

property that the debtor claims as exempt” under 11 U.S.C. 

§ 522(l). But unlike objections to discharge, for which the 

limitations period ordinarily runs from the beginning of the 

meeting, objections to exemptions must be filed “within 30 days 

after the meeting of creditors . . . is concluded.” Fed. R. 

Bankr. P. 4003(b)(1) (emphasis added). Thus, because the 

Bankruptcy Judge in this case extended the filing of objections 

to discharge to 60 days after the creditors’ meeting was 

concluded, the conclusion of the creditors’ meeting starts the 

clock for objections to discharge here just as it starts the 
13

clock for filing objections to exemptions in the normal course 

under Rule 4003(b)(1). And a few trial courts, along with two 

of our sister circuits, have considered -- in evaluating the 

timeliness of an objection to exemptions -- when a creditors’

meeting is concluded. Compare In re Peres, 530 F.3d 375, 378

(5th Cir. 2008) (meeting adjourned sine die not necessarily 

concluded), with In re Smith, 235 F.3d 472, 476-77 (9th Cir. 

2000) (meeting concluded unless adjourned to a stated date and 

time); see also In re Newman, 428 B.R. 257, 264 (B.A.P. 1st Cir. 

2010) (declining to decide between Ninth and Fifth Circuits’ 

approaches); In re Dutkiewicz, 408 B.R. 103, 110 (B.A.P. 6th 

Cir. 2009) (same). It is from this body of case law that the 

Trustee mines his approach.

Specifically, the Trustee leans heavily on the methodology 

outlined in In re Peres, where the creditors’ meeting was 

“continued without a formal announcement as to the date of 

continuation” and reconvened eleven months later over the 

debtors’ objection. 530 F.3d at 376. The debtors argued that 

the failure to announce a continued date within thirty days 

meant the meeting had been concluded. Id. at 377. The Fifth 

Circuit rejected that argument, holding instead “that § 341(a) 

creditors’ meetings adjourned indefinitely are not concluded, 

and therefore do not trigger the thirty day deadline” under Rule 

4003(b)(1). Id. at 377-78. The court adopted a “case-by-case 
14

approach,” under which it looked to four factors to “determine 

whether any delay in reconvening the meeting was reasonable.” 

Id. at 378.4 The Trustee argues that we should adopt In re Peres

as the blueprint for determining when the creditors’ meeting was 

concluded here. We see two difficulties with adopting this 

approach.

First, in In re Peres, the trustee reconvened the meeting 

after the adjournment sine die. Thus, the chronology facing the 

court included (1) a creditors’ meeting continued without an 

adjournment date, followed by (2) an eleven-month break,

followed by (3) another creditors’ meeting. The court’s task 

was to decide which of those two meeting dates marked the 

official conclusion of the creditor’s meeting. It held that an 

11-month hiatus was reasonable and that the meeting did not 

conclude until the latter date. Id. at 378. Here, by contrast, 

the creditors’ meeting never reconvened following the attempted 

adjournment on July 19. We cannot “determine whether any delay 

in reconvening the meeting was reasonable,” id., when the

meeting was never reconvened. There seems to us a significant

difference in holding that a creditors’ meeting concluded on the 

 4 The four factors governing this approach are: “(1) the 

length of the delay; (2) the complexity of the estate; (3) the 

cooperativeness of the debtor; and (4) the existence of any 

ambiguity regarding whether the trustee continued or concluded 

the meeting.” In re Peres, 530 F.3d at 378.
15

final date the trustee convened the creditors, as in In re 

Peres, and holding, as the Trustee would have us do here, that 

the meeting concluded at some point after that date, when no 

meeting was scheduled and no creditors were convened.5

The second, and perhaps even more striking, problem with 

following the In re Peres approach is that the court there 

interpreted the pre-2011 version of Rule 2003(e). In the 

absence of the clear prohibition the amendment imposed, the In 

re Peres court sought merely to “restrain[]” the trustee’s 

“ability to indefinitely postpone a meeting of the creditors”

through its four-factor balancing test. 530 F.3d at 378

(emphasis added). In 2011, the Rules Committee went further:

it eliminated that ability altogether. Although the Trustee 

claims that “decisions since the amendment to Rule 2003(e) 

support application of the case-by-case approach,” Appellee’s 

Br. 31, in fact he can cite only one post-2011 case that stops 

short of explicitly rejecting the approach followed in In re 

Peres. See In re PMC Mktg. Corp., 482 B.R. 74, 80 (Bankr. 

 5 Perhaps in recognition of this problem, the Trustee 

maintains that the focus of the case-by-case approach is whether 

a delay in concluding, rather than in reconvening, a meeting was 

reasonable. See Appellee’s Br. 34. But this slight pivot

constitutes an attempt to mask a fundamental difference in the 

analysis. By asking us to consider whether he was reasonable in 

delaying the meeting’s conclusion beyond July 19, the Trustee 

suggests that a creditors’ meeting may conclude at some point 

other than when the meeting’s attendees are convened. That is 

not a possibility the Fifth Circuit considered in In re Peres.
16

D.P.R. 2012) (applying both the case-by-case approach and the 

alternative bright-line approach, to identical effect). And 

even that case recognizes that the amendment “required trustee’s 

[sic.] to take formal steps to effectuate a continuance[,] . . . 

thereby eliminating the use of the term sine die.” Id. 

Moreover, we note that the only other court squarely to consider 

the issue since Rule 2003(e) was amended has unambiguously 

rejected the case-by-case approach. See In re Vierstra, 490 

B.R. 146, 151 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2013) (amendment to Rule 2003(e) 

“inexorably leads” to conclusion that case-by-case approach no 

longer valid).

In sum, the Trustee asks us to ignore what was undeniably a 

violation of Rule 2003(e). Though he attempted to adjourn the 

creditors’ meeting on July 19, 2012, he failed either to 

announce the date and time of the adjourned meeting or to file a 

statement thereafter containing that information. Because Rule 

2003(e) unambiguously requires these actions to effectuate an 

adjournment, the meeting was never adjourned. And because the 

meeting was never adjourned, we hold it was concluded.

IV.

Though we rule in Jenkins’s favor today, we stop short of

adopting the “bright-line approach” that he espouses and that

has emerged as an alternative to the case-by-case approach. The 
17

bright-line approach dictates that “[t]he result of the failure 

to adjourn a creditors’ meeting pursuant to Rule 2003(e) is the 

[per se] conclusion of the creditors’ meeting.” Appellant’s Br. 

22; see also In re Smith, 235 F.3d at 477.

We agree that the Trustee’s failure here yields that 

result, but we hesitate to impose such a penalty for all

possible Rule 2003(e) violations. This strikes us as

particularly prudent given that neither the Code nor the 

Bankruptcy Rules attach consequences to the failure to properly 

adjourn a meeting. And because both the Code and the Rules are 

replete with explicit consequences, we presume this 

congressional silence to be intentional. See, e.g., Fed. R. 

Bankr. P. 4004(c)(1) (consequence for the “expiration of the 

times fixed for objecting to discharge” is the “grant[ing of]

the discharge”); 11 U.S.C. § 522(l) (consequence of failure to 

object to property listed as exempt is declaration of the 

property as exempt).

Moreover, administering Rule 2003(e) in the bright-line 

fashion Jenkins suggests may lead to draconian -- and, we think, 

unwise -- results. One can imagine, for instance, a trustee

failing to announce at the initial meeting the adjourned date 

and time, but promptly thereafter filing written notice setting 

forth that information. Though not in strict accordance with 

Rule 2003(e)’s twin requirements, such action may not warrant an 
18

automatic declaration of the meeting’s conclusion as of the date 

of the improperly adjourned meeting. We see no upside to 

hamstringing future courts that may reasonably find a trustee 

substantially complied with Rule 2003(e).6

Nothing, however, dissuades us from our holding that this

is not such a case. The Trustee made no attempt to comply with 

any part of Rule 2003(e), and made no effort to reconvene the 

meeting he claims he merely adjourned. Instead, the Trustee 

asks us to hold that the meeting concluded not when the 

meeting’s attendees were last convened, but at some later point 

marked only by a docket entry. Such a holding would stretch the 

language of Rule 2003(e) too far.

The Trustee had ample tools to avoid this result. He could 

have properly adjourned the meeting on July 19, or he could have 

timely filed the complaint a mere nine days earlier. At base, 

this is a case of failure to meet a deadline. And although, 

especially in bankruptcy, deadlines may produce “unwelcome 

results,” they also “produce finality” by “prompt[ing] parties 

 6 In addition, bankruptcy courts of course retain “equitable 

powers” that may “be exercised within the confines of the 

Bankruptcy Code.” Siegel, 134 S. Ct. at 1194 (internal 

quotation marks and citations omitted). Given this latitude, a 

bankruptcy court may also conclude that extraordinary 

circumstances excuse a failure to comply with Rule 2003(e), thus 

precluding a declaration of the meeting’s conclusion. Such 

instances will be rare, however, given that compliance with Rule 

2003(e) requires very little and is entirely within the 

trustee’s control.
19

to act.” Taylor v. Freeland & Kronz, 503 U.S. 638, 644 (1992). 

When parties fail to heed the warnings inherent in deadlines, 

their interests must often yield, as the Trustee’s do here, to 

the virtue of such finality.7

V.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district 

court is reversed and the case is remanded for further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED

 7 The Trustee contends that even if his complaint was not 

timely, we should “sua sponte deny entry of discharge.” 

Appellee’s Br. 39. The Bankruptcy Rules, however, provide that, 

“[i]n a chapter 7 case, on expiration of the times fixed for 

objecting to discharge . . . the court shall forthwith grant the 

discharge.” Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4004(c)(1) (emphasis added). To 

be sure, exceptions to this automatic discharge exist, see Fed. 

R. Bankr. P. 4004(c)(1)(A)-(L), but the Trustee does not argue 

that any of these exceptions apply here. Rather, he asserts 

that Rule 4004(c)(1) conflicts with the Bankruptcy Code, a clash 

in which “the Bankruptcy Code prevails.” Appellee’s Br. 40. 

But, in fact, Rule 4004(c)(1) entirely accords with the Code. 

In 11 U.S.C. § 727(a), the Code provides a number of scenarios 

under which a debtor is ineligible for discharge, and in 

§ 727(c)(1), empowers the trustee to object to discharge on 

those grounds. Rule 4004(c)(1) reflects the judgment that once 

the trustee’s opportunity to object has passed, the discharge

will be granted even if a timely objection might have been 

successful. The Trustee argues that this notion offends “[t]he 

frequently cited purpose of bankruptcy . . . to afford [only] 

the honest but unfortunate debtor . . . a fresh start.” 

Appellee’s Br. 40 (quotation marks and citation omitted). Not 

so. Rather, this result balances such worthy aims against the 

equally critical need for efficiency and finality in the 

administration of bankruptcy estates.