In re Landers
UNPUBLISHED
As the Court has previously discussed in In re Fawson, 338 B.R. 505 (Bankr. D. Utah 2006) and In re Wilkinson, 346 B.R. 539 (Bankr. D. Utah 2006), § 521(a)(1)(B)(iv) and (i)(1) operate to automatically dismiss individual debtors' cases 46 days after the petition date if “copies of all payment advices or other evidence of payment received within 60 days before the date of the filing of the petition, by the debtor from any employer of the debtor” are not filed by the 45th day. In this case, it appeared that the Chapter 13 Debtor failed to timely file one payment advice for the pay period ending April 30, 2006 and that the case had potentially been dismissed effective August 9, 2006. At the confirmation hearing, the Debtor testified only that he could not recall whether he received a payment advice for the April 30th pay period although he had no breaks in employment and always received such payment advices from his employer for his bi-weekly paychecks. The Debtor then argued that his belief as to whether all required payment advices were filed was controlling under § 521(a)(1)(B)(iv). The Court ruled that the weight of the evidence contradicted any alleged belief by the Debtor that he had timely filed all required payment advices. The Court also ruled that there is no statutory basis for concluding that a debtor's subjective belief is controlling rather than the objective facts of whether qualifying payment advices were received and filed.