Bankruptcy

How Many Bankruptcy Appeals?

By Bob Lawless

Classes started today. This semester I am teaching Business Bankruptcy, which principally covers chapter 11. We were talking about the bankruptcy court system, a topic that does not always get covered in great detail in the other bankruptcy courses, and the appellate steps in the bankruptcy system. A student asked how many U.S. Court of Appeals cases each year involve bankruptcy.

That was a good question, so I looked it up. What's your guess for the number of U.S. Court of Appeals cases, as reported by the U.S. judiciary, that involve bankruptcy each year? Answer after the jump.

864

That is for the twelve months ended March 31, 2009, the most recent period for which data are available. . See Table B-5 here. I knew the number was small, but that was even lower than I expected. In contrast there were about 880,000 total bankruptcy petitions in the period from April 2007 - March 2008, which would roughly be the time during which the cases involving the 864 appeals were filed. With bankruptcy filings rising, there probably will be more appeals, but I bet it's not a 1:1 rise.

Full post as published by Credit Slips on January 19, 2010 (boomark / email).