In the Matter of Irene D'agnese, Debtor-Appellant’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
3 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently April 2022 · most notably Clean Cut Tree Service, Inc. v. Costello (In Re Costello) (2003), Aoki v. Atto Corp. (In Re Aoki) (2005)
3 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Martin First Federated Life Insurance Co v. A Martin · United States v. Hatchett · Banner Oil Co. v. Bryson (In Re Bryson) · Baum v. Earl Millikin, Inc. · Bay State Milling Co. v. Martin (In Re Martin)
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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(a) The court shall grant the debtor a discharge, unless ... (5) the debtor has failed to explain satisfactorily, before determination of denial of discharge under this paragraph, any loss of assets or deficiency of assets to meet the debtor’s liabilities;”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Questions of credibility are solely for the trier of fact ... who has the best opportunity to observe the verbal and nonverbal behavior of the witnesses focusing on the subject’s reactions and responses to the interrogatories, their facial expressions, attitudes, tone of voice, eye contact, posture and body movements as well as confused or nervous speech patterns in contrast with merely looking at the cold pages of an appellate record.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Title 11 U.S.C. § 727 (a)(5) requires a satisfactory explanation for the whereabouts of a debtor’s assets. Although the bankruptcy court did not specifically conclude that the debtor was lying, it found her statements “vague and uncorroborated” and therefore not adequate to explain the depletion in assets. The debtor’s argument in this appeal depends upon her setting up a false dichotomy between explanations that are not credible and those that are satisfactory. The debtor’s explanation, while not necessarily a lie, was, nevertheless, not satisfactory. Under § 727(a)(5), a satisfactory explanation “must consist of more than ... vague, indefinite, and uncorroborated” assertions by the debtor. Baum v. Earl Millikin, Inc., 359 F.2d 811, 814 (7th Cir.1966); see also In re Bryson, 187 B.R. 939, 955 (Bankr.N.D.Ill.1995). The debtor gave a vague and indefinite statement about the missing assets and she finally stated that she did not know what happened to some of the assets. Further, although the debtor claims that some items were transferred to Dzioba, the debtor fails to provide any testimony from Dzioba or documentary evidence to support the claim, even though the assets in question were of substantial monetary value. Thus, because the debtor failed to specify the whereabouts of the assets or provide any convincing evidence that the assets had been transferred to Dzioba, the bankruptcy court did not commit clear error in finding that the debtor’s explanation was inadequate as a m”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.