In Re Murphy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “But even if the appreciation could be fairly characterized as both substantial and unanticipated, the court cannot find that the refinance effected an improvement in the debtors’ financial condition sufficient to support involuntary modification of their plan. The refinance simply exchanged the increase in the value of the house for a corresponding amount of debt. While it is true that the debtors, by refinancing, have in a colloquial sense “tapped” the equity that has accrued since confirmation, the cash they have received is by no means found money. What the debtors have received, very simply, is a loan. A loan does not represent income, nor does it improve a debtor’s financial condition. Rather, the cash received from a loan is balanced by a corresponding debt, with the result that the debtors’ net worth remains unaltered. The trustee does not suggest that the debtors could have been compelled, 18 months into a five-year plan, to incur indebtedness and borrow against the equity in their residence so as to increase the dividend on unsecured claims regardless of how much the property might have appreciated during the plan term. The fact that the debtors (whether wisely or otherwise) voluntarily decided to borrow against the equity should not result in a different outcome.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Brown

2. “[a]ll property of the estate shall revest in the debtor[s].”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Murphy v. O'Donnell