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Full-Text Articles in 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, …
Debt’S Emotional Encumbrances, Pamela Foohey
Debt’S Emotional Encumbrances, Pamela Foohey
Scholarly Works
This chapter focuses on the role of emotions in the theory and practice of commercial and consumer credit laws, including bankruptcy, in the United States. It assesses knowledge about people’s emotions regarding personal and business financial problems, and evaluates how “money law” systems account for these emotions. This assessment finds that emotions surrounding taking on and being able to pay back debt differ between business leaders and people who shoulder household debt. These differences are traceable in large part to historical understandings of the respectability of incurring debt. This history has shaped the development of bankruptcy, commercial, and consumer credit …