Better Call Dave – Bankrupt MN Blog

Well, I’m kind of a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” kind of guy. It’s hard for me to admit limitations. But I just finished a round of phone calls to my children and my Mother-in-Law (age 87, but acts like 57) cancelling tonight’s planned holiday family event.

We’ve had a tradition that some time during the holidays we all get together and head to downtown Minneapolis to go through the display formerly known as the Dayton’s display, now the Macy’s display. Upstairs in the old Dayton’s department store building, since time immemorial going back to at least the 1960s, there has been a wonderful, entertaining and sometimes inspiring display. This year the theme apparently is the Nutcracker.

Earlier in the day during the first round of phone conversations the consensus seemed to be: screw the weather, let’s go anyway. Since then the snow has gotten worse. Then my son reported that his car was covered with snow with ice underneath the snow. When he tried to clear it, he broke off a windshield wiper. After that I found out that one of my daughters is at her boyfriend’s place – which is in Eagan, further away from my place here in Minnetonka than I had figured.

So on with public TV’s version of the weather channel – which at my place is Channel 13. Quite a graphic depiction of the weather radar showed the weather pattern doing a circular thing where there was no sign of it passing by. Looks more like it intends to stick around quite a while.

The storm should be over by Christmas Day. At that time we’ll discuss maybe trying to go to Macy’s another day before the display ends; apparently it runs until New years‘ Eve. I’m disappointed, however, over not being the conquering hero who figured out how to do the event in the face of the nasty adverse conditions. In my business life I have often been that hero, pulling miracle rabbits out of my hat or out of various other places. But upon having given up on the idea of going out in this storm, I am feeling relief.

There’s a whole body of literature on the subject of how if one feels relief after making a decision, that’s a good sign that it was the right decision.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all. If you have taken the time to read all this, let me suggest that you turn off the computer now and get face to face with either a family member or a friend. If you can’t get face to face, at least try making use of that quaint and ancient device – the telephone.

It’s a quiet day at my office. Lots of people are calling with questions, but nobody wants to actually come see me. Every other day this week, I have lots of appointments. There must be something about Halloween where people think it’s a bad day to see a lawyer.

I certainly know a few lawyers who I felt may have been vampires, and others who seemed at least borderline demonic. It might be also that lawyers as a profession are more nocturnal than those engaged in many lines of work. A few years ago the wags on KS95 were making a point of telling lawyer jokes around 6 am on the theory that the lawyers would not be up yet at that time, which for the most part I believe was true.

I just received a call from a gentleman in the State of Tennessee. He had a bankruptcy question, but I recommended that he find a lawyer from his own state to ask. Bankruptcy law is federal, but the application of it still varies widely from state to state. There are many questions of interpretation of the new law where the individual courts disagree widely. Asset exemptions are set by state law, and that can make a dramatic difference in the outcome concerning what a debtor may be allowed to keep.

Yesterday a gentleman called who had moved within the past two years from Texas to Wisconsin to Minnesota. He wants to file a bankruptcy here. There are provisions of the new law which are intended to discourage shopping for favorable exemptions by moving from state to state. Under those provisions, if this gentleman wanted to file here right now he would probably have to claim the exemptions provided for under Texas law. What a mess! I have never practiced law in Texas, but all of a sudden I may need to know something about their exemption laws. The last time that happened I made a point of consulting with a lawyer from the state in question. Every now and then I get a call from a lawyer in some other state with a similar question about Minnesota exemption laws.

This has been quite a ramble, if you have managed to keep reading to this point. All I meant to say was HAPPY HALLOWEEN.!

I hope nobody is having trouble getting email through to me today, or having trouble finding my web sites. For the next 24 hours or so there will be new settings propagating across the Internet which will be redirecting traffic for all my stuff to a new server. While this goes on, I might be missing some of your email; and it might appear that one of my sites, or some part of my sites, are down or among the missing.

Having this goes on drives me nuts, and I hope the transfer is completed soon and smoothly. Meanwhile, all I can say is that I apologize for any inconvenience.

While the transition is taking place, please use the following alternative email address to reach me: kellylawoffice@mail.popp.net.

I had court in Scott County – that’s Shakopee, MN – on Monday September 17th. I headed straight for my courtroom, thinking it strange that someone had set up a theater-size popcorn machine by the entrance to the building and was obviously dishing out free popcorn. I was concentrating on how to get my client’s charge reduced. What was up with that would have to wait.

Later in the morning, after I was finished in the courtroom, I took a look at the table near the popcorn machine, and saw that it was covered with material about the Constitution and Constitution Day. I found out that the woman in charge of the table and the popcorn was one of the librarians from the Scott County Law Library. First she asked me if I wanted some popcorn. I declined. Next she asked if I wanted a free, pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution. I said yes, and could I have two extra for the other two lawyers I office with.

Before I left I had received not only three free pocket-sized Constitutions, but also a tour of the Scott County Law Library. They have two computers set up where the public can access Westlaw, Lexis and Fastcase – three of the leading law research services. They also subscribed to some of the lesser research services as well. I made a mental note: If I can’t find what need the law elsewhere, maybe I should drive down there and try their resources. Before I left I also got one of the librarians to agree to perhaps checking something for me if I asked by phone, provided I was polite and respectful when I called.

I still have not seen or heard of any mention of Constitution Day except that article in the Duluth paper that I mention in my previous posting. I checked Monday’s Star Tribune – there was no mention of it. I want to commend those librarians for their efforts, and suggest that Constitution Day would be something to which we should all give more attention

I’m taking a couple of days off, and I’ve headed my favorite direction: north. With my wife, my dogs and my camper.

We have the camper set up at the Grand Marais Municipal Campground. This morning was cold and rainy, but now it has cleared and the sun is out. We would usually make coffee – lots of coffee – and sit by the camper first thing in the morning. But this morning, in honor of the misty weather, we headed into town and went to a coffee shop called the Java Moose. The fellowship and the quality coffee resulted in a very rewarding morning. Today’s Duluth News Tribune had already arrived, and I found an interesting article about Constitution Day. It’s this Monday, September 17, 2007.

It seems that on September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention finished their work on a draft of a Constitution for these United States. It’s not a holiday in the sense that there’s no mail or the courthouses are closed, but it does seem to be observed by several federal agencies – such as the National Archive that has the job of preserving the original document making up the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

It is often my job to explain to a client who has been arrested for DWI what his or her constitutional rights are. I can run through them pretty fast. In fact, I think I can summarize them sometimes without stopping to take a breath. There’s the right to remain silent – which is why the questioning possible terrorists is such a hot issue. There’s the right to be presumed innocent; and the right to a jury, where all the jurors have to agree or one is considered not guilty.

One of my favorites is the right to confront and cross examine witnesses. When I get to this one I might sometimes stop, because my client has heard it before and it doesn’t sound like that big of a deal. I may take a moment to mention that prior to our constitution, in places like England, is was a rather common practice to hang someone or lob off their head after a trial that was based on written statements. For just a moment, I invite you to think about what that experience would be like.

I found that article in the Duluth paper to be educational and inspiring. Frankly, I had never heard of the observance of Constitution Day before. How could that be I am asking myself, particularly considering the business that I am in. I admit to having no excuse. I did, however, just run a search on the subject at the web site of the paper I usually read, the Star Tribune. So far there’s nothing there. I hope they at least mention it this Monday.

I often advise my clients that if they are sure they are going to be filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, they should stop trying to make payments on the debts that they expect to have discharged. It is surprising how many people just don’t follow that advice, or think it doesn’t apply to them, or believe it shouldn’t apply to some particular bill that they really want to pay. Often they make such payments only to find that after the bankruptcy is filed, the Trustee is demanding that the creditor who they paid must now give the money back – back to the Trustee of course.

One of the principles of bankruptcy law is that all of the creditors are to take their losses equally. In the event that the debtor has paid an unsecured creditor $600 or more in a consumer case or $5,000 or more in a business case within the 90 day period before the case is filed, the Trustee can go to the creditor and demand that money. The trustee will recover the money and, after perhaps using some to pay administrative costs, distribute it equally on a prorata basis to all the unsecured creditors. The term for such a large payment to a creditor within the 90 days before filing is “preference.” It’s not OK for one creditor to be preferred over another.

Another type of preference is a payment made on a debt owing to an “insider.” Insiders are either close relatives or close business associates. There’s no dollar limit on this type of preference, and under Minnesota law the Trustee may be able to go back as far as six years to recover these payments. This insider thing can get very nasty, and you should be sure to disclose any possible problems in this area to your lawyer. There are some defenses to these insider claims, and your lawyer should be able to tell you if one might apply to your situation.