The Court of Appeals in Boston became the first circuit court to hold that the time for filing a claim does not continue to run while a chapter 13 case has been dismissed. At a minimum, the court held, the numbers of days a case was dismissed does not count toward the 90 days allowed for filing a claim in chapter 13 after the first meeting of creditors under Bankruptcy Rule 3002(c).
The bankruptcy judge had dismissed the chapter 13 case on June 13, although the deadline for filing unsecured claims would not have occurred until July 19. The bankruptcy judge reinstated the case on Aug. 1, after the filing deadline had passed.
A creditor filed a motion for leave to file a late claim on Aug. 7. The bankruptcy judge allowed the late claim and set a new Sept. 6 claim deadline.
Sitting by designation from the Ninth Circuit, Circuit Judge Michael D. Hawkins explained in his March 25 opinion for the First Circuit how Rule 9006(3) restricts a court’s ability to extend the claim-filing deadline to the six circumstances set forth in 3002(c), but dismissal is not one of them.
Nonetheless, Judge Hawkins said that Rule 9006 does not specify how time is counted in the event of dismissal. He noted that no circuit has held that creditors must file claims after a case is dismissed. Indeed, he said, the Fifth Circuit rejected the notion that a creditor must file a claim despite dismissal.
At a minimum, Judge Hawkins said, the days a case is dismissed should not be counted toward the deadline for filing claims. In the case before him, the claim was timely using that calculation. The appeals court therefore did not rule on whether a bankruptcy court has power to reset the deadline beyond the adjusted deadline giving allowance for the days during dismissal.
It remains to be seen whether courts will apply the same judge-made rule to cases in other chapters.