Bankruptcy

10th Circuit Rules On Pay Advice Issue, Reverses Bankruptcy Court

By Scott Riddle

From the Bankruptcy Prof Blog -

Miller v. Cameron (In re Miller)  ---- B.R. ----, 2008 WL 754809 (10th Cir. Mar. 2008) (click here for opinion). 

Issue: Is a debtor's pay stub containing year-to-date income totals “other evidence of payment” sufficient to meet the filing requirements of payment advices for the previous 60 days?

Holding: Yes 

Under the bankruptcy court's interpretation, a debtor would not only need to provide a separate piece of documentary evidence for each pay period during the sixty days prepetition, he would also have to ensure that each piece of evidence was created by his employer.” “[T]he bankruptcy court's interpretation makes the ‘other evidence of payment’ option effectively non-existent. This stretches the statutory language too far.” “[Y]ear-to-date payment information may be credible ‘other evidence of payment received,’ even though the evidence is not technically in the form of separate payment advices for each relevant pay period.” “In reaching this conclusion, it is important to emphasize that we are not holding that year-to-date income information per se satisfies the filing requirements of § 521(a)(1)(B)(iv). Whether year-to-date figures or some ‘other evidence of payment’ presented by a debtor satisfies the statute will depend on the particular facts and circumstances of any given case.”

Full post as published by Georgia Bankruptcy Blog on April 10, 2008 (boomark / email).