Title Baltimore County Savings Bank, FSB v. James Paul Q
Judge
Robert A. Gordon
Entered
Case Number
06-15939
Summary

Debtor/Defendant moved to dismiss nondischargeability adversary proceeding for untimeliness under Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4007(c), specifically asserting that following conversion from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 there is no Section 341(a) meeting of creditors and that therefore Plaintiff's complaint under Section 523(a)(2) had to be filed no later than sixty (60) days following the date of conversion to be timely, despite Rule 4007(c)'s explicit command that the deadline expires sixty (60) days after the "first date set for the meeting of creditors under Section 341(a)". The Court held that, upon conversion, Section 348(a) operates to spawn a new "order for relief" (notwithstanding the statutory caveat that the "date of" the order for relief does not change from the date of the original order for relief) and that this in turn generates a second, independent Section 341(a) meeting of creditors, by operation of the plain meaning of Sections 301, 341(a), 342(a), 343 and 348(a).

These provisions, taken in conjunction with Rule 1019(2), which mandates the resetting of Rule 4007(c)'s deadline following conversion from a case under Chapter 11 to a case under Chapter 7, require that a Section 341(a) meeting be convened post-conversion and that nondischargeability complaints must be filed within the time period stated in Rule 4007(c)'s plain language i.e. within sixty (60) days after the first date set for the meeting of creditors in the converted case. As the Plaintiff's complaint was timely filed, Debtor's motion to dismiss was denied.

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