Lamie v. U.S. Trustee
John Lamie served as the bankruptcy attorney for Equipment Services, Inc. He billed and was paid for his services during the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The Chapter 11 proceeding was turned into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding, in which a company's assets are liquidated to pay off creditors. Lamie billed an additional $1,000 for representing Equipment Services in the Chapter 7 proceeding. However, the current version of the federal statute governing compensation for services rendered under Chapter 7 bankruptcy, 11 U.S.C. § 330(a)(1), does not list a debtor's attorney as someone eligible for compensation from the bankruptcy estate. Relying on the decisions of three federal appeals courts, Lamie argued that Congress made a "scrivener's error" when it revised the Chapter 7 provisions in 1994 and inadvertently excluded debtor's attorney from the list of those were compensable (debtor's attorneys had been listed in the statute prior to the revision). Affirming the district court, the appeals court held that the plain language of the statute did not authorize compensation for a debtor's attorney in Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings. The ruling widened the circuit split to 3-3 on this issue.
Question Presented
Does 11 U.S.C. § 330(a)(1) authorize a court to award fees to a debtor's attorney?
