Court Opinion

ID: 9689792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:47:08.198188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:52.285839
License: Public Domain

BRANDT, Bankruptcy Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent: as observed by the bankruptcy judge, debtor never challenged the model plan. Transcript, 28 May 2004, at 9:4. All four of debtor’s plans presumably contained the language now objected to (only the third amended plan is in the record before us). Neither party to this appeal has briefed the implications of that failure, and we should not answer questions not squarely presented in a procedurally correct fashion, particularly when, as here, neither party has addressed the issue in the bankruptcy court or on appeal.
Debtor does not just propose to pay off the plan, which requires payment in full of all claims if within the first 36 months, but to do two things: first, amend the plan to delete that requirement, and then to pay a lesser amount (assuming the total claims exceed the “pot” — the record before us does not disclose the total). And proposes to do so without notice to creditors, which Rule 3015(g), Fed. R. Bankr.P., requires for post-confirmation modifications:
A request to modify a plan ... shall be filed together with the proposed modification. The clerk, or some other person as the court may direct, shall give the debtor, the trustee, and all creditors not less than 20 days notice by mail of the time fixed for filing objections and, if an objection is filed, the hearing to consider the proposed modification, unless the court orders otherwise with respect to creditors who are not affected by the proposed modification....
Most local bankruptcy rules put the burden of giving notice on the proponent of the modification; that is likely the case in the Northern District of California, but we have no briefing on that point, either.
The certificate of service, of which we may take judicial notice, indicates service only on the trustee. Counsel’s representation that the notice had been served on all creditors, quoted in footnote 3 above, is not convincing: she does not say that she sent the notice to them, there’s no indication she even checked her file, and she contradicts the sworn statement of her paralegal in the proof of service filed 11 May 2004. The lack of notice to creditors precludes treatment of the motion as a modification to the confirmed plan, and raises questions of due process. See In re Bagby, 218 B.R. 878, 884-886 (Bankr.W.D.Tenn.1998) (modification of a confirmed plan requires notice to all creditors informing them of the effects of the proposed modification on their claims and of the procedure for objection to the modification). See also 3 Keith M. Lundin, ChapteR 13 BaNkruptcy, 3d ed. ¶ 253.1 (2000 & Supp.2004).
I would affirm.