Rebecca B. Connelly
How Judge Connelly rules, drawn from 22 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Connelly decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
An administrative pause in collection does not remove an otherwise valid tax liability from the debtor's total debt.
“An administrative determination that an account is not collectible does not extinguish or reduce the underlying tax obligation.”
The court applies enacted statutory text without importing restrictions that the legislature did not include.
“As such, this Court will not read into the statute language that is not present or enacted by the legislature.”
Procedural preferences
A proposed plan modification must be supported by sufficiently stable income to make the new payments feasible; an unliquidated asset alone is insufficient.
“Merely holding a nonliquid asset or a claim (a right to payment) is not enough; the debtor must be able to make the payments under the plan as modified to render the modification feasible.”
Cautions
Bad-faith dismissal requires circumstances showing real abuse rather than an unfavorable prepetition act or a filing directed at one large debt.
“Dismissal for bad faith, therefore, should be reserved for cases of real misconduct.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Westlake’s sole basis for seeking an examination under Rule 2004—to determine whether the presumption of abuse arises under the means test—is mooted by the Court’s determination that section 707(b) is inapplicable to this case.”
“MEMORANDUM DECISION SUSTAINING DEBTOR’S OBJECTION TO CLAIM 8-1”
“For all of the foregoing reasons, the Court denies the motion to dismiss the petition and denies relief from stay.”
“For these reasons, the Court denies in part and grants in part the motion to quash the garnishment.”
“For the reasons set forth below, the Court holds as a matter of law that the debts to Dulles Electric that arose after the individual guarantors filed chapter 7 were not discharged in the individual guarantors' bankruptcy cases.”
“MEMORANDUM OPINION DENYING MOTION TO WAIVE PRE-PETITION CREDIT COUNSELING REQUIREMENT”
“For the foregoing reasons, the Court dissolves the temporary injunction and denies all pending motions.”
“The Court therefore grants Ms. Hanson's motion for summary judgment.”
After review of stipulated facts, the creditor failed to prove that the debtor's handling of tax refunds caused a willful and malicious injury.
“The Committee’s motion to dismiss is denied.”
After trial, suspicious timing did not overcome evidence that the debtor transferred property to liquidate assets and pay existing obligations rather than to hinder or defraud a creditor.
“For the foregoing reasons, the Court overrules the trustee’s objection to confirmation of the debtors’ plan, and denies the trustee’s request to compel Sean and Melinda to amend Official Form 22C-1, Schedule I, and their chapter 13 plan.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
All six sampled matters were terminated. Piland supplied one express contested outcome; the five early-service streams were empty.
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