18 B 09130
The Federal Deposit Insurance Company objected to proofs of claim filed by attorneys who represented the Debtor’s spouse in a dissolution of marriage case. The state court awarded fees to the attorneys in connection with establishing support owed to the Debtor’s former spouse and their child. The state court defined the awards to the attorneys as non-dischargeable domestic support obligations. The FDIC argued that they were not domestic support obligations entitled to priority under Section 507 because they were payable to the attorneys, not to the Debtor’s former spouse or child.
The Seventh Circuit and other courts have found attorneys’ fee awards made in connection with dissolution litigation to be in the nature of domestic support obligations, not because a state court says they are domestic support obligations, but after analyzing the language and substance of the judgments in issue, the parties’ financial circumstances and the function served by the obligation.

The FDIC’s objections were overruled. The fee obligations were held to be domestic support obligations entitled to priority under section 507 of the Bankruptcy Code.