Court Opinion

ID: 9685716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:58:11.864164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:51.821867
License: Public Domain

ELLIOTT, Bankruptcy Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the majority but would affirm on the basis that Rule 3002(c) establishes an absolute bar date and that the debtor does not have a reasonable period of time thereafter to file a claim for a creditor.
Congress left it to the bankruptcy rules to fix the time within which a claim may be filed in a bankruptcy case. Rule 3002(c) fixes that time as 90 days from the first date set for the meeting of creditors under § 341(a) of the Code.
II U.S.C. § 501(c) authorizes the debtor or trustee to file a claim for any creditor who does not timely file a claim. What does the term “timely file” mean? I find the answer in Rule 3004 which authorizes the debtor or trustee to file a claim for a creditor who has not filed a claim at or before the first meeting. The advisory committee note to this rule notes that the rule impliments 11 U.S.C. § 501(c) and states, in part,
The authority to file is conditioned on the creditor’s failure to file the proof of claim on or before the first date set for the meeting of creditors, which is the date a claim must ordinarily be filed in order to be voted in a chapter 7 case.
Thus, “timely filed” means filed on or before the first date set for the first meeting under § 341.
I appreciate the view of the judges in In re D.A. Behrens Enterprises, Inc., 33 B.R. 751 (Bankr.N.D.Pa.1983) and In re Higgins, 29 B.R. 196 (Bankr.N.D. Iowa 1983) that it is equitable to relieve the debtor of his own negligence in failing to file a claim for the IRS within the 90 day period al*34lowed by the rules. But that interpretation does violence to Rule 3002(c) and Rule 9006(b)(3). The latter rule provides that the court may enlarge the time for taking action under Rule 3002(c) “... only to the extent and under the conditions stated in those rules.”
We have a duty to resolve issues in a fashion that harmonizes the rules and the law. I submit that if the rule makers intended that the bar date be extended beyond 90 days for a debtor to file a claim on behalf of a creditor that they had only to add it to the exceptions already contained in Rule 3002(c).
The cases construing § 501(c) demonstrate how what appears to be, at first blush, a reasonable exercise of the court’s equity power, turns out to be the camel’s nose under the tent. In Higgins the claim was only 16 days late. In the Behrens Enterprises case the claim was over six months beyond the bar date. In the case before us on appeal, the claim was almost 20 months late — which would allow the whole camel into the tent if the claim was allowed.
I disagree with the courts that see no detriment to creditors in allowing a late filed tax claim. To the extent the tax claim is allowed, creditors with a lesser priority receive less. Why are not those creditors, who have gone to the trouble of timely filing their claims entitled to expect the dividend they are entitled to if the court follows the law and enforces the rules? We have no way of knowing the extent to which creditors may have made plans and commitments in anticipation of receiving a dividend to which they are entitled from and after the bar date.