In the context of a professional’s application for compensation, the court addressed the appropriate billable rate for travel time. The court concludes that time traveling, and not performing legal services while traveling, is compensable at one-half a professional’s normal hourly rate. 

The court grants, in part, the Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on his complaint for willful violation of the stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362(k). In that regard, there is no material dispute as to the Defendant’s liability based upon her actions regarding her garnishment of the Chapter 7 Plaintiff-Debtor’s post-petition wages. The court set a subsequent hearing to determine damages.

The Court found the IRS in contempt of the Debtor’s discharge order and awarded $498.21 in damages. Attorney’s fees were denied on the basis that the attorney was representing his spouse without a fee agreement and there were no out of pocket legal expenses that could be recovered under 26 U.S.C. § 7430.

The debtor was paying the IRS in full through a confirmed Chapter 13 plan. Subsequently, the IRS seized the debtor’s tax refund to apply it to the same delinquent tax liability that was being paid through the plan. Accordingly, the debtor moved to hold the IRS in contempt for violating the order of confirmation. The precise language of the Court’s model plan and the Trustee’s confirmation order, however, did not specifically address how the IRS could treat post-confirmation tax refunds owed to the debtor. Because there was a failure to address the permissibility of the IRS’s offset, the debtor failed to state a claim for contempt.

In denying Mannington’s motion to dismiss and granting the Chapter 7 trustee’s motion for summary judgment, the court found that the viability of Mannington’s judgment lien was not extended beyond the initial 10-year period such that the Chapter 7 trustee can avoid the purported lien.  In that regard, the court was unpersuaded by Mannington’s argument that the debtor’s several bankruptcy cases extended the effective period of its lien by more than 1,300 days.  Notably, no automatic stay existed in December 2018 when Mannington’s lien was set to expire.

The Court denied an exception to discharge complaint under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(4) that alleged defalcation or fraud with acting in a fiduciary capacity or, in the alternative, embezzlement.

On summary judgment, the Court addressed a dispute over the meaning of certain language in the debtor’s confirmed Chapter 11 plan, and addressed other related issues.

A prospective hotel purchaser’s award of attorneys’ fees against the bankruptcy estate was entitled to administrative expense priority under section 503(b)(1) because it was a post-petition expense and it was (a) incurred in the operation of the debtor’s business and (b) the prospective purchaser’s approved stalking horse bid allowed the debtor to market the property to other potential purchasers at a higher price (the Court stated that the purchaser had not breach the purchase-sale agreement and had the Debtor complied with the provisions in the purchase-sale agreement, the hotel would have sold for nearly $1 million more than its eventual sales price).