Claims Based on Credit Card Debt: How Much “Proof” is Required?
by the Honorable Dennis R. Dow
An issue receiving much recent attention in the courts and among commentators is the nature and extent of the documentation required to be attached to proofs of unsecured claims based on credit card debt. Several courts have recently considered the issue in decisions reflecting mixed results. This subject has also been the focus of several recent articles in the ABI Journal. See, e.g., S. Andrew Jurs, Unsecured Claims and Rule 3001: How Much “Writing” or Supporting Information is Required?, ABI Journal, June 2004, p. 10; John Rao, Debt Buyers Rewriting of Rule 3001: Taking the “Proof” Out of the Claims Process, ABI Journal, July/August 2004, p. 16. This article briefly reviews the key holdings in several recent opinions. Those interested in a more thorough discussion should attend the meeting of the Consumer Bankruptcy Committee at the ABI’s Annual Spring Meeting which will focus exclusively on this topic.
Committee Agenda for Annual Spring Meeting
The consumer committee has scheduled a panel to review the conflicting decisions which continue to emerge in connection with Bankruptcy Rule 3001 and Official Form 10 in relation to unsecured proofs of claim, particularly those filed on behalf of credit card issuers and debt purchasers. This issue has been the subject of several previous articles in the ABI Journal and continues to present concern and confusion in the overwhelming number of bankruptcy courts which have no published decisions determining these issues. The panel will also discuss the recently promulgated Director’s Procedural Form 210, Notice Of Transfer Of Claim Other Than For Security. (Form B210 and related instructions are available online.)
The panel will be moderated by Burton Craige Professor of Law, Elizabeth Gibson, University of North Carolina School of Law, and includes creditors’ counsel, Alane A. Becket, Becket and Lee, who has extensive national experience and has previously written on these issues (ABI Journal, December/January 2005), and debtors’ counsel, David Lin, who has been successfully involved in these issues at both the trial and the appellate levels. The panel presentation contemplates a comprehensive and valuable presentation of these continually encountered issues.