Contact: John
Hartgen
703-739-0800
href='mailto:jhartgen@abiworld.org'>jhartgen@abiworld.org
ABI POLL:
CROP RELIEF PAYMENTS CONSIDERED PART OF DEBTOR’S ESTATE IF
BANKRUPTCY FILED PRIOR TO AID LAW
April 27, 2007, Alexandria,
Va. —Results of a recent American Bankruptcy Institute
online poll showed that respondents were closely divided over the
question of whether a disaster crop relief payment should be included in
the estate of a farmer who declared bankruptcy prior to enactment of the
2003 Agricultural Assistance Act. Twenty-five percent “agreed
strongly,” while 26 percent “disagreed strongly” that
the disaster relief payment should be included in the debtor’s
estate.
An additional 18 percent of
respondents “agreed somewhat” that the disaster relief
payment should be included in the estate, while 8 percent
“disagreed somewhat.” Twenty percent of the respondents did
not know or had no opinion on the issue.
The results showed a shift in
opinion on the issue from a similar poll taken last August in which the
majority of respondents thought that crop payments should not be
considered part of the debtor’s estate if the bankruptcy was filed
prior to the aid law.
The poll is based on
Bracewell v. Kelley (In re Bracewell), 11th Cir., No. 11951,
6/30/06, in which the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that a
disaster relief payment issued under the 2003 Agricultural Assistance
Act to a farmer who had declared bankruptcy in 2002 was not part of the
farmer’s bankruptcy estate. Judge Edward E. Carnes wrote that
while the relief payment was a result of the farmer’s
pre-bankruptcy filing losses, it should not be included in the
farmer’s estate because it was the result of a statute passed
post-petition.
ABI members and members of the
public were welcome to submit their response to the statement:
“A crop-bailout payment received by the debtor pursuant to
post-petition legislation, but predicated entirely on pre-petition
events, is property of the debtor’s bankruptcy estate.”
The latest ABI Quick Poll was open to the public for voting from April
12-26.
ABI’s weekly Quick Poll
is posted on ABI’s home page,
href='http://www.abiworld.org/'>www.abiworld.org. ABI members and
the public are invited to respond to a question on a timely bankruptcy
or insolvency issue. Visit
href='http://www.abiworld.net/quickpoll/'>
color='#0000ff' size='3'>http://www.abiworld.net/quickpoll/
to access the results of previous ABI Quick Polls.
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education on matters related to insolvency. ABI was founded in 1982 to
provide Congress and the public with unbiased analysis of bankruptcy
issues. The ABI membership includes nearly 11,500 attorneys,
accountants, bankers, judges, professors, lenders, turnaround
specialists and other bankruptcy professionals, providing a forum for
the exchange of ideas and information. For additional information on
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href='http://www.abiworld.org/conferences.html'>
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