This long-running asbestos bankruptcy saga involving Kaiser Gypsum and its affiliate Hanson Permanente Cement returned to the Fourth Circuit following a Supreme Court remand, which held that Truck Insurance Exchange ("Truck") qualified as a “party in interest” under § 1109(b) of the Bankruptcy Code. This opened the door for Truck to assert objections to the proposed § 524(g) reorganization plan, which had previously been rebuffed for lack of standing.
The District Court affirmed the Bankruptcy Court’s denial of confirmation of Bobby Goddard’s Chapter 13 plan, holding that the plan was not proposed in good faith under 11 U.S.C. § 1325(a)(3), despite the debtor’s full compliance with the means test under § 1325(b).
Goddard, an above-median income debtor and Army veteran suffering from PTSD, proposed a plan in which he would retain three secured vehicles—a Corvette, a GMC Sierra pickup truck, and a Genesis sedan—while making minimal distributions to unsecured creditors.
In a study of venue for the one hundred ninety-five large, public company bankruptcies filed from 2012 through 2021, I discovered nine cases (5%) in which the companies’ venue claims were in apparent conflict with what the debtors themselves stated on their petitions to be the locations of the companies’ principal places of business and principal assets. Eight of the nine proceeded to confirmation in an improper venue.
