William G. Schwab v. Nadejda Reilly (560 U.S. 770)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 17, 2010 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 560 U.S. 770 · 130 S. Ct. 2652
- Decided
- June 17, 2010
- Term
- October Term 2009
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Thomas
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court. When a debtor files a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, all of the debtor’s assets become property of the bankruptcy estate, see 11 U. S. C. § 541, subject to the debtor’s right to reclaim certain property as “exempt,” § 522(0. The Bankruptcy Code specifies the types of property debtors may exempt, § 522(b), as well as the maximum value of the exemptions a debtor may claim in certain assets, § 522(d). Property a debtor claims as exempt will be excluded from the bankruptcy estate “[u]nless a party in interest” objects. §522(0. This case presents an opportunity for us to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals about what constitutes a claim of exemption to which an interested party must object under §522(0- The issue is whether an interested party must object to a claimed exemption where, as here, the Code defines the property the debtor is authorized to exempt as an interest, the value of which may not exceed a certain dollar amount, in a particular type of asset, and the debtor’s schedule of exempt property accurately describes the asset and declares the “value of [the] claimed exemption” in that asset to be an amount within the limits that the Code prescribes. Fed. Rule Bkrtcy. Proc. Official Form 6, Schedule C (1991) (hereinafter Schedule C). We hold that, in cases such as this, an interested party need not object…
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