Civil Rights Actions Against Trustees

[bankruptcymill]

This may be above your typical posters heads but is anyone aware of a succesful Civil Rights or Rackateering Action being brought against a private trustee or the U.S. trustees office over abuse of office. This seems to be fertile ground for such actions.

[Minnymouth]

Haven't read anywhere about the Civil Right or Rackateering Action but have read various Court Orders repraminding (can't spell) Trustees for their Actions during the bankruptcy process....... Some were relieved of duties and penalized with fines.....

I'm sure there are those that step over the line, or rock the boat right on that line..... that would be considered rackateering......

The fact that few pursue the issue is why we never hear much about it.....

Unless the Court is aware that "negligence" or "over the line actions" exist they are never brought forward in front of the Court.....

I will do a little research and see what I can locate on this subject......

[Minnymouth]

Most of the bankruptcy lawsuits I have researched have been where Creditors have commited "negligence" in regards to a debtor, thus causing the debtor to loose all they own in bankrutpcy, when they shouldn't have....

And most of these cases the debtor won the case.......thus resulting in a private lawsuit against the creditor...

[bankruptcymill]

Thanks for ur input

would like to here more horror stories about citizens dealing with the trustees office and the private trustees. My experiience has been that many are very corrupt and that the Department of Justice refuses to investigate allegations of corruption. Seems to me the United States Department of Justice refuses to aknowledge the possibility of or investigate internal civil rights violations. I've written to the head of the dapartment and he never responds.

Clifford White, III Director
U.S. Department of Justice
Executive Office of the U.S. Trustee
20 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. Suite 8100
Washington, DC 20530

The man appears to be in denial maybe if more people would write and complain they would take the matter seriously.

[Minnymouth]

Perhaps if more cases made their way to the news and the airwaves (Dateline, 20/20 etc) more notice would be paid to them......

When you contact the "top dog" with no reponse, you start asking "WHY??".....

And usually John Q Public likes to know "why" too.................

[Minnymouth]

Try dropping a certified letter to the Attorney General in Washington as to why you can't get a response from this man's office...... Attorney General oversees this department..................

Often they are given 30 days to respond to inquiries......

Keep us posted.

[lrprn]

Check out this case where a local bankruptcy trustee was fired in 2000 by the US Trustee for making racially derogatory remarks to a debtor - http://www.usdoj.gov/ust/eo/rules_re...ase00-0001.htm

[Minnymouth]

Yes, all trustees and US trustees have guidelines they have to follow........... and many "ride the ridge" when it comes to these guidelines.....

[anonymuse]

Once I read something about a trustee being fired since they were somehow involved with the auction company that was selling non-exempt property and there was a conflict of interest--can't remember the specifics.

As with any segment of the population, there are going to be a few bad seeds out there. Ch 7 trustees are not compensated very much (they're trying to raise it up beyond the $100 per case), so not sure where they are being "corrupt", but I was **guess** that there are a few out there who like the implied "power" associated with the job. I think the Ch 13 trustees might have more potential for corruption; however, that doesn't mean there aren't more than a few bad apples.

I've noticed your comments in a few threads. Would you mind sharing your experience with us?

[lrprn]

Sometimes the Attorney General isn't the most fair either. Here's a case where the Attorney General at the time, John Ashcroft, fired a Norther California/Nevada chief bankruptcy administrator in 2002 because she was doing a good job cleaning up some of the cronyism inside the system - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&type=business

Linda Stanley, the trustee in question, filed suit against Ashcroft to get her job back in 2003. Will do some searching later to see if this case has been decided yet - if I find something, I'll post it here.

[Minnymouth]

Yes, I remember reading about this....... sudden and unexpected removal.....
very interesting......

[bankruptcymill]

Here r some examples

A chapter 7 trutee must hire an attorney to go after assets if he choses to do so. So he in affect becomes a party to issue government contracts. So he uses this to influence by awarding contracts to other bankruptcy atttorneys in the area hell spread the "contracts" around to exert more influnece. Then when that attorney who was a former contract attorney has a case befor the trusteee he uses his influence to bind that attorneys client to a settlemt without litigation because the attorney can bind his client to an agreement without he clients signature pursuant to the federal rules.

Another is just the chapter 7 truste doing debtor work in his own jurisdiction. He can just about state anything he wants on the scheduleds and then it passes through on a wink and a nod.

With chapter 13 trustees its more like a Soprano situation where theyll set up an office make the maximum $170,000. never man the office but have a lot of women ther "doing the work" hell then spend most of his time in his own private office representing debotors in sevens and elevens.

[bankruptcymill]

To LRprn

Thanks that was great. Another thing to look out for is just because you hire a chapter 7 trustee to represent you as a debtor doesn't mean he wont sell you up the river if the going gets a little tough. If you have acces to pacer you can type the attorneys name in and all his cases will come up. look for the adversaries. Does he defend them? Or type in a firms name or attorney who does a lot of creditor work and see who is defending. When I did this I found about %90 of the lawyers and trustees doing debtor work sold out and convinced their client they couldn't defend when in reality there some of the easiest defensible cases in the legal profession. i also notice that this usually this happens to women.

[Minnymouth]

REMEMBER,
You have a US Trustee, and a Trustee (who works for the creditors)....

Normally the only people you will ever see is the Trustee, seldom will you see or meet the US Trustee or the Bankruptcy Judge or one of your creditors.....

When you file your petition it is looked at by the US Trustee (who covers a large area in the state or states) who in turn assigns the case thru the Bankruptcy Judge to a local attorney who is also qualified to practice law as a Trustee (very few of these).. (a lot of lawyers are not Trustee lawyers)..

Trustee attorneys require special schooling and education......

The Trustee meets with you and the creditors........

If you have assets the Trustee will then hire an attorney (often his own law practice) to collect the assets for resell.... all this under the scrutiny of the US Trustee and with the end approval of the Bankruptcy Judge.....

So there are many people involved with your case...... Bankruptcy Judge, US Trustee, Trustee, local attorney (if assets), then your attorney also.....

Quite often the right hand DOES NOT KNOW what the left hand is doing.......
Sooooooooooo, its a good idea to stay on top of everything...............

[Minnymouth]

And yes, I do agree that you can get "sold down the river" by your attorney and also by the Trustee if he see's fit........

Many attorneys, if there's nothing in it for them, why waste the effort...... their not loosing anything!!! You are..... and they still get paid.