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Opinion 589

Case Name: 

Hunt v. Steffensen (In re Steffensen)

Judge: 
Judge Thurman
Date: 
Jul-23-2015
Case Number(s): 
13-2192
Status: 

PUBLISHED

Body: 

Chapter 7 trustee brought an adversary proceeding to deny debtor a discharge and moved for partial summary judgment under 11 U.S.C. § 727(a)(3) and 727(a)(5). The Court denied the Debtor his discharge and found: (1) the term "keep," as used in discharge exception for debtors who fail to "keep or preserve" adequate financial records, is not synonymous with preserve; (2) debtor-attorney was a sophisticated individual with experience in bankruptcy law and so had no excuse for failing to create and preserve records sufficient to allow trustee and creditors to ascertain his business transactions; and (3) debtor's explanation that he could not keep records because he could not afford a bookkeeper, did not have time to keep records himself, and his computer hard drive crashed was inadequate.

Internal Ref: 
Opinion 589
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