Georgia Bankruptcy Blog

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).

I'm not sure I agree that it's an excellent recap. I heard direct from the horse's mouth - David Baker, who argued the case, and several people in attendance - that the justices appeared to be coming around to the petitioner's side towards the end. I do concede that the likely opinion will not be favorable, but that has more to do with political realities than anything noted in the recap.

It's clear reading the transcript that many of the justice do not understand consumer bankruptcy - a troubling thing to say the least. Exhibit A: the "mootness" question came out of nowhere - you know they don't get it when they keep asking about whether it's moot, and even the Respondent (and the US amicus atty) agree with the petitioner that it's not moot.

Thanks for the comments, Sheryl, and another perspective of someone who was there. I consider them all "excellent" opinions from people who were in attendance or participated, and expect that people will have different viewpoints depending on their side of the argument, or whether they were just an interested observer.