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Full-Text Articles in Bankruptcy Law
The Settlement Trap, Lindsey Simon
The Settlement Trap, Lindsey Simon
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Mass tort victims often wait years for resolution of their personal injury claims, but many who successfully navigate this arduous process will not receive a single dollar of their settlement award. According to applicable bankruptcy and state law, settlement payments may be an asset of the estate that the trustee, exercising its significant authority, administers and distributes to creditors instead of a claimant who had filed for bankruptcy. This distribution power maximizes repayment, a critical counterbalance to the robust protections and benefits that debtors receive in bankruptcy.
Setting aside the perceived unfairness of taking desperately needed money from tort victims, …
Chapter 11 Shapeshifters, Lindsey Simon
Chapter 11 Shapeshifters, Lindsey Simon
Scholarly Works
Logic and equity would seem to demand that when administrative agencies are creditors to a bankrupt debtor, they should have the same status as other creditors. But a creditor agency retains its regulatory authority over the debtor, permitting it to continue with agency business such as conducting enforcement proceedings and awarding licenses. As a result, though bankruptcy law and policy both strongly support equal distribution of the estate, administrative agencies have been able to circumvent these goals through the use of “shapeshifting” behaviors. This Article evaluates two dangerous shapeshifting scenarios:
(1) where the agency avoids the limitations of creditor status …