The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted the U.S. Solicitor General’s petition for a writ of certiorari in Office of the U.S. Trustee v. John Q. Hammons Fall 2006 LLC, 22-1238 (Sup. Ct.), to decide whether chapter 11 debtors are entitled to refunds for overpayment of fees for the U.S. Trustee System, according to a special analysis from ABI Editor-at-Large Bill Rochelle. In Siegel v. Fitzgerald, 142 S. Ct. 1770 (Sup. Ct. June 6, 2022), the Court unanimously held that the 2018 increase in fees paid by chapter 11 debtors to the U.S. Trustee System was unconstitutional because it was not immediately applicable in the two states with Bankruptcy Administrators rather than U.S. Trustees. The Court in Siegel explicitly left open the question of remedy. The government had been contending that prospective relief was sufficient. In other words, the government believes it is enough for the Court to have ruled that fees must be uniform throughout the country in the future. Alternatively, the government wants courts to rule that someone should retroactively collect underpayments from debtors in Bankruptcy Administrator districts.
