17 B 25141
In this case, the City of Chicago refused to turn over the debtor’s vehicle unless their claim was paid in full. The City’s claim was treated as unsecured in the confirmed plan; the City did not object to this treatment of its claim. The Debtor filed a motion to modify his confirmed plan to pay the City of Chicago in full as a compromise to get the City to release the vehicle. In this opinion, the court denied the motion to modify the plan and sanctioned the City for violating the automatic stay in violation of Thompson v. GMAC.The court ruled that the City did not have a possessory lien as provided for in its ordinance because the ordinance was inconsistent with Illinois law.

16 B 14713 Consolidated with 16 B 23020, 16 A 00707
The court found several debts nondischargeable where the debtor, an attorney, lied about and failed to repay clients' loans from settlement proceeds.

17 B 22517
The movants sought dismissal of this Chapter 11 case for cause alleging that the Debtor is an instrumentality of the Village of Lombard, and as such is not allowed to seek bankruptcy relief as a governmental unit.  The Debtor was incorporated by Lombard to construct and operate a hotel and convention center which has been managed under the Westin flag for several years. The court denied the motions to dismiss finding that Lombard did not control the Debtor and that the Debtor did not perform municipal functions, relying in part on an Illinois Appellate Court ruling denying the Debtor’s efforts seeking a tax exemption as a governmental body.

17 B 20163
The issue was whether Debtor Adger's filing of a Chapter 13 case on July 5, 2017 at 6:26 p.m., rather than before 5 p.m. when the Cook County Clerk's office closed was filed timely  for purposes of allowing the debtor to treat a tax purchaser's claim over the life of a Chapter 13 plan.   The court analyzed  the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, the Illinois Supreme Court's Electronic Filing Standards and Principles and our local Bankruptcy Court's Administrative Procedures for CM/ECF  that govern electronic filing. Generally those Rules and Standards provide that a document filed on the due date before midnight is timely filed.  The Amended Motion to Modify Automatic Stay was denied.

09 B 49112, 17 A 00280
The Debtor sued Wells Fargo Home Mortgage alleging that it violated the discharge injunction when it sent her three informational letters concerning its lien. The court found that the creditor did no more than what Bankruptcy Code Section 524(j) allows mortgagees to do post-discharge: communicate with debtors to maintain periodic payments on residential property in lieu of the creditor pursuing in rem relief to enforce the lien.

16 B 8776, 16 A 00356
Debtor Erin V. McDougal defaulted on rent payments under an apartment lease.  Her lessor asked that the debt owed be found to be non-dischargeable due to representations made by the Debtor alleged to be false. During the period the representations were being made the Debtor paid $35,000 to the lessor in an effort to satisfy her obligations.  The court found (1) that the representations were promises to become current, not false representations made with intent to deceive and  (2) that her failure to become current  was a contract breach because the statements could not be held to be false representations where the creditor can not prove that a debtor never intended to make payments.

15 B 40866
In this ruling the court sanctioned an attorney pursuant to Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9011 for pursuing a bankruptcy case solely to delay a foreclosure case, to avoid the lawful appointment of a receiver and to needlessly increase a secured creditor's legal fees and costs.

09 B 5868
The Court sanctioned Attorney Maurice James Salem and his clients Ragda Sharifeh and Haifa Sharifeh for violating Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9011 for filing several motions and pleadings in an attempt to gain access to trust assets held to be property of the Debtor's bankruptcy estate in 2010.  The 2010 Order where the trust assets were found to be the Debtor's alter ego and thus property of the bankruptcy estate as of February 24, 2009 was affirmed by the District Court in 2012.  The Seventh Circuit affirmed the District Court in 2015 after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit's earlier ruling limiting the bankruptcy court's jurisdiction.
Mr. Salem has been ordered to pay a $20,000 fine. He and his clients have been ordered to never again file pleadings in this bankruptcy case and its related adversary proceedings.
Should Mr. Salem need to file something in these cases in the future he has to first obtain leave of this Court to do so.

14 B 02696, 15 B 17314
The court found that it has post-confirmation jurisdiction to enforce and interpret its confirmation order in a chapter 11 case  where all transactions described therein have not been completed and a final decree has yet to be entered.

16 B 04589
The court found that the purchaser of the Debtor's unpaid real estate taxes was adequately protected by the "sale in error" program and potential Plan payments.

15 B 40866
An attorney has been found to have violated Rule 9011 by delaying a creditor's efforts to enforce its rights.

14 B 11526
In this matter an attorney retained under a Court-Approved Retention Agreement ("CARA") in a Chapter 13 case initially failed to seek fees for pursuing a Motion for Damages for a violation of the automatic stay and instead decided that she was entitled to $3000 in fees in addition to the $4000 flat fee.
This court ruled that the CARA requires attorneys to pursue damages and injunctions for violations of the automatic stay and the discharge. The opinion covers attorneys' duties under Section 329 of the Bankruptcy Code  and Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2017  to disclose initial and subsequent fee agreements.

 15 B 37632
Seventeen days after the Debtors modified their confirmed Chapter 13 plan the Trustee asked to have their case dismissed on term of plan grounds because it would take 86 months to complete plan payments. The court denied the motion ruling that the court can not confirm a plan projected to last for more than sixty months as limited by Bankruptcy Code sections 1322(d)(1)-(2) and 1329(c) but that dismissal is not mandated if a debtor needs a reasonable period of time to cure an arrearage incurred during the plan term.

14 B 44983
This is Debtor 401 Properties Limited Partnership's second Chapter 11 case.  Its first Chapter 11 case was found to have been filed in bad faith and dismissed on August 16, 2010 - case number 10 B 28114. The court found that the second case was also filed in bad faith. The Debtor's principals Leon Greenblatt and Andrew Jahelka (as well as its former general partner's representative Michael Horrell) are using the bankruptcy system to wage a battle for control of the Debtor, rather than the appropriate bankruptcy purposes of maximizing recoveries to creditors and maintaining a going concern.

15 B 013904, 15 A 00568
In this case a former spouse has asked that certain debts/obligations of a Chapter 7 Debtor established in a Dissolution of Marriage Judgment be held to be not dischargeable under Sections 523(a)(5) and (a)(15) of the Bankruptcy Code.  The Court found that the Temporary Spousal Support, Health Care, Pension and Real Estate Tax and Assessments obligations are not dischargeable domestic support obligations.  A fine for noncompliance with discovery obligations was held to be not in the nature of support and for that reason is dischargeable.  The state court judgment reserved ruling on attorney's fees.  When that issue gets resolved this Court will determine whether that obligation can be discharged.

09 B 05868, 12 A 00430

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Wellness International Network v. Sharif, the Seventh Circuit affirmed a 2010 order that this Court entered which found that a Trust that the Debtor (Sharif) administered was the Debtor’s alter-ego and therefore its assets were property of his bankruptcy estate.  Since the 2010 order, the Debtor, the Debtor’s sister, and, most recently, the Debtor’s other sister have made no less than 10 attempts to reclaim the Trust assets.  These attempts have been well documented in over 180 pages of orders and opinions from this Court, all of which have denied their requests.

Despite all of this, two of the Debtor's sisters recently brought motions seeking to recover the Trust assets. This opinion outlines the seven-year history of the parties' efforts to reclaim the Trust assets.  This latest attempt also failed.  This opinion includes an Order to Show Cause why the sisters, and their attorney, Maurice J. Salem, should not be sanctioned under Rule 9011 for bringing improper and frivolous motions.

14 B 41542, 15 A 00009
The Debtor defaulted on a vehicle loan within a month of purchasing a 2015 Chevrolet Equinox.  He was referred to the vehicle dealership by Uber, the ride-sharing service. AmeriCredit failed to convince the Court that the Debt was nondischargeable because the Debtor refused to reaffirm it and due to various misstatements the Debtor made on the credit application.  The Court pointed out that neither Uber nor a representative of the dealership testified. Judgment was entered in favor of the debtor/defendant.  The debt was discharged.

14 B 44983, 15 A 00499
Court overruled objection that a partial assignee of a note lacks standing to sue on it.

15 B 35961
In this matter, the Court granted secured creditor 36 Holdings, LLC’s Motion to Dismiss the Debtor’s Chapter 11 Case. The Debtor is a single-asset real estate entity that filed for bankruptcy on the day a receiver was appointed in a pre-petition state court foreclosure case. The Debtor argued it needed bankruptcy protection from the secured creditor because it interfered with a deal to sell the property in an attempt to acquire the property for itself and because the appointed receiver was not eligible to serve in that capacity due to a conflict of interest. The Debtor could have sought immediate review of the interlocutory receiver order pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 307(a)(2), but did not. The Court ruled that the bankruptcy case was filed in bad faith because bankruptcy objectives of maximizing value and maintaining going concerns were not implicated herein. The Debtor filed its bankruptcy petition to forum shop. In addition, the Debtor failed to timely file schedules.

09 B 05868
In this case, the sister of the Debtor, as the purported executrix of their mother’s (Soad Wattar) testamentary estate, seeks an order vacating a five-year old order directing the turnover of property (the “2010 Motion”) alleged to be the mother’s. The movant argued that the court lacked personal jurisdiction because the mother’s estate was not served with the 2010 Motion.
The movant seeks relief from the bankruptcy court, while contending that it does not consent to the court’s jurisdiction over any state court claims.

On August 5, 2010, the court ordered two financial institutions to turn over to the Chapter 7 Trustee funds held in certain investment accounts and directed the Debtor to account for and turn over to the Trustee all interests and accounts concerning him or the Soad Wattar Revocable Living Trust (the “2010 Order”). The court also ordered the Debtor and his sisters not to interfere with and to cease any act to exercise control over property of the bankruptcy estate, including life insurance policies.

The movant now argues that the 2010 Order is void, seeking redress pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4), made applicable under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9024.

The Court denied the motion to vacate the 2010 Order. The movant did not provide evidence that it is a party that was entitled to notice of the 2010 Motion or that the property dealt with in the 2010 Order belonged to a testamentary estate. The will submitted to the Court transferred all of the decedent’s property to a revocable living trust which was held, pursuant to a default judgment in Wellness International Network Ltd. a/k/a WIN, et al. v. Sharif, adversary proceeding no. 09-00770, in 2010, to be the alter ego of the Debtor.

The Court’s finding that the trust was the Debtor’s alter ego was appealed to the District Court, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.