Opinion ID: 1036318
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Perle’s Schedule E

Text: The information about the arbitration award debt that Perle listed on his Schedule E was patently inaccurate. Although Perle tries to downplay it, the description he provided was so nebulous that it was impossible to tell that it was Fiero Brothers to whom he was actually indebted. For example, although the arbitration panel ruled unambiguously that Perle was liable to Fiero Brothers in the amount of $350,000.00, Perle didn’t name Fiero Brothers on the Schedule E nor did he list the amount. Instead, he incorrectly reported the debt was owed to “NASD/NASD Regulation,” and he stated the amount was “unknown.” He also misstated the date the debt had been incurred, listing it as 1999 even though the arbitration panel made the award in 1998. On top of all of that, the award was neither a “tax” nor a “governmental debt,” as Perle represented on the top of the Schedule E. Perle argues that because the arbitration panel’s ruling was titled “NASD Regulation, Inc.,” he reasonably believed that the debt was owed to the NASD and not to Fiero Brothers. We doubt it. The arbitration panel’s ruling was actually titled “Award,” and “NASD Regulation, Inc., Office of Dispute Resolution” was a mere subheading on the panel’s written judgment. Regardless, Perle had testified in the 1998 arbitration and knew that it was Fiero Brothers, not the NASD, who had obtained the award against him. Moreover, IN RE: PERLE 7 Perle listed other creditors to whom he owed NASD arbitration awards by their names on his Schedule F, which suggests that he knew exactly how to list Fiero Brothers on his bankruptcy schedules but chose not to. Ellett v. Stanislaus, 506 F.3d 774 (9th Cir. 2007), is instructive. In that case, a Chapter 13 debtor notified the California Franchise Tax Board of his bankruptcy but misstated the final digit of his social security number so that the board couldn’t conveniently locate his records and file a timely proof of claim. Id. at 776–77. Although the board could have identified the debtor with only a little diligence, we held that it had no responsibility to; the burden was on the debtor, in the first instance, to list the information correctly. Id. at 781. Perle’s serial mischaracterization of known details of the 1998 arbitration award was far more egregious than the apparently inadvertent transposition of a single digit of a social security number in Ellett. We conclude that Perle’s Schedule E did not provide Fiero Brothers with proper notice of his bankruptcy.