The Akin Gump Supreme Court Blog has an excellent recap of yesterday’s Supreme Court oral argument in the case of Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts (05-996).  The blurb about the case is as follows –

The question presented in Marrama is whether a bankruptcy court may deny a debtor’s request to convert his case from chapter 7 to chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code based on a finding that the debtor has acted in bad faith. The petitioner, Robert Louis Marrama, contends that a court may not deny a debtor’s requested conversion under the plain language of Section 706(a) of the Code, whereas the respondents suggest that a bankruptcy court possesses the inherent authority to sanction bad faith conduct by denying a conversion.

Visit the Supreme Court Blog for the excellent recap and analysis of the argument and questioning (including whether or not the issue is moot – an issue not raised in the briefs).