Opinion ID: 203943
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Scheduled as Contractually Due

Text: At the time a debtor files a bankruptcy petition and completes Form B22A, which includes the means test calculation and the inquiry about secured debts that are scheduled as contractually due, see supra note 5, the debtor will not yet have given up any secured property identified for surrender in his or her Statement of Intention. Thus, even if the debtor plans to surrender a house on which he is paying a mortgage, he will at that point still have contractually due payments that are scheduled to be paid during the upcoming months. This is so whether or not the debtor has already defaulted on the mortgage by failing to make such payments in previous months because the fact of default does not release him from the ongoing obligation. See Randle, 358 B.R. at 365 ([T]he debtor must fill out Form B22A as of the petition date, and on that date her mortgage payments were `due' under the contract whether the debtor planned to make them in the future or not.). The instructions on Form B22A confirm that the debtor is expected to provide current information for all secured debt. It identifies the Future payments on secured claims that must be listed on Line 42, pursuant to section 707(b)(2)(A)(iii), as follows: For each of your debts that is secured by an interest in property that you own, list the name of [the] creditor, identify the property securing the debt, and state the Average Monthly Payment. The Average Monthly Payment is the total of all amounts contractually due to each Secured Creditor in the 60 months following the filing of the bankruptcy case, divided by 60. (Emphasis added.) The form, like the statute itself, asks in the present tense for a list of debts secured by property. The list is not limited to debts on property the debtor plans to retain, nor does it exclude debts that recently have gone unpaid. The statutory provision is stated comprehensively, asking for the total of all payments scheduled during the five-year period, without reference to whether other documents filed in connection with the bankruptcy show that the payments are likely to stop during that period. See, e.g., Hartwick, 359 B.R. at 19; Randle, 358 B.R. at 363. [12] In sum, any debt that is secured is covered by the statute's inquiry. The Trustee argues that reading the phrase `scheduled as contractually due' to include all current contractual obligations fails to give independent meaning to the words `scheduled as.' If that is what Congress meant, she asserts, it could simply have defined the relevant payments as those contractually due ... following the date of the petition. To give effect to the separate term scheduled as, she maintains that the statute must be read as asking for a forward-looking assessment of whether the payments actually will be made. The word scheduled, however, does not connote the confirmation of payments to be made that the Trustee ascribes to it. Indeed, it implies the contrary recognition that such payments, although scheduled, may in fact not be made; otherwise, the request would more logically have been for information about all payments that will be made to creditors during the targeted sixty-month period, or all payments the debtor expects or intends to make during that time frame. See Walker, 2006 WL 1314125, at  (noting that the word scheduled implies the possibility that the payments may not be made as required under the contract). As other courts have observed, if Congress had sought to exclude secured debt on properties the debtor has stated an intention to surrender, it could easily have said so. Randle, 358 B.R. at 363; see also, e.g., Hartwick, 359 B.R. at 19; Walker, 2006 WL 1314125, at  (noting that Congress could have specified that the payments to be deducted are only those payments to be made on secured debts that the debtor intends to reaffirm). Congress's choice of language shows a clear intent not to impose any such limit on debtors. Randle, 358 B.R. at 363. The Trustee points out fairly that, under this interpretation, the term scheduled as appears to play no role in defining the payments covered by section 707(b)(2)(A)(iii)(I). The same result would be achieved by referring only to payments that were, at the time of the bankruptcy filing, contractually due. Still, we fail to see how that apparent surplusage warrants limiting the words scheduled as which are stated in the present tenseto only those payments that will be made in the future. See Lamie, 540 U.S. at 536, 124 S.Ct. 1023 (Surplusage does not always produce ambiguity and our preference for avoiding surplusage constructions is not absolute.). Although our construction of the statutory language cannot turn on the language of Form B22Athe official document on which debtors must report their means test calculationswe think it worth noting that the phrase scheduled as is omitted from the form's instructions for calculating secured debt. See supra note 5 & p. 46. The absence of that language may reflect a recognition by those tasked with creating the document that the term adds nothing to the inquiry. The Trustee alternatively argues that scheduled as must be construed in the specific context of the Bankruptcy Code, where the word schedule and the phrase scheduled as are used as terms of art. This argument invokes a debate in the cases that address section 707(b)(2)(A)(iii)(I) between two main interpretive campsone concluding that the word scheduled refers to a debt being listed on the debtor's formal bankruptcy schedules, and the other adopting the common, dictionary-defined meaning of `scheduled' as `planned for a certain date.' Hayes, 376 B.R. at 61; see also Haar, 360 B.R. at 764-65; Skaggs, 349 B.R. at 599. The Trustee argues here that the Code refers to claims or debts being scheduled as due if the debt is properly listed on a debtor's bankruptcy schedules, and she asserts that scheduled as contractually due should thus be limited to those contractual obligations properly listed on a bankruptcy schedule because the debtor intends to honor them. The primary problem with this argument, as recognized in Hayes and other cases cited therein, see 376 B.R. at 62, is that section 707(b)(2)(A)(iii)(I) does not refer directly to any bankruptcy schedules, and there is no schedule that asks a debtor to identify obligations that are contractually due at the time of the petition, but that may be resolved through surrender of the collateral. See id.; see also Sorrell, 359 B.R. at 185 ([A] debtor's statement of intention is not a schedule.); Randle, 358 B.R. at 365; In re Nockerts, 357 B.R. 497, 502 (Bankr.E.D.Wis.2006) (noting that, when describing the bankruptcy schedules, Congress include[s] in the statute a reference to the schedules, either directly by name or indirectly by reference to § 521, the provision that requires the debtor to file bankruptcy schedules). Moreover, to the extent that appearance on a schedule is a prerequisite for including a debt in the means test calculation, Schedule J, which lists the debtor's expenses as of the petition date, could be expectedas in this caseto include any mortgage payments due at that time, without regard for the debtor's future intentions with respect to the underlying property. See Randle, 358 B.R. at 365 (noting that Schedule J normally includes mortgage and car payments due at the time the bankruptcy petition is filed). [13] In addition, the Code uses the word scheduled in two places in the dictionary-definition sense to refer to scheduled payments, making an ordinary construction of the term a possibility in this context as well. See Hayes, 376 B.R. at 61-62 (citing, as an example, 11 U.S.C. § 1326(a)(1)(B), which provides that a debtor shall make pre-confirmation payments `scheduled in a lease of personal property directly to the lessor'). Hence, the Code's other uses of scheduled or scheduled as fail to illuminate the meaning of the term here, giving us no reason to depart from the provision's plain meaning, i.e., that the debtor may deduct all payments owed at the time of the bankruptcy filing. The scheduled as language may not be construed in isolation, however, Hayes, 376 B.R. at 63, and we therefore consider whether the other critical statutory language points to a different outcome.