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In the case of California Coast Univ. v. Aleckna No. 16-158 (M.D. Pa. Aug. 28, 2019) the Court held that California Coast University violated the bankruptcy stay where it excluded the graduation date from the debtor’s transcript because she owed $6300 in overdue tuition. The debtor had filed a chapter 13 bankruptcy which prohibits creditors from collecting from the debtor .   The court noted that it is well settled that withholding a transcript in an attempt to force the debtor to pay a debt violates the bankruptcy stay.    The debtor was also granted costs and attorney fees to be […]

In some cases a debtor can have their bonus taken in bankruptcy even if they have not been paid it yet.   However there was some good news for the debtor in the May 2019 case of  In re Brown in Illinois.   In that case the debtor had been receiving bonuses every year that she had been employed, and the trustee argued that there was enough past history so that the future bonus was part of the bankruptcy estate and could be taken to pay creditors.   However, the Court held that the bonus was not part of the bankruptcy estate since […]