In re Vaughan, ___-bk-___ (Bankr. Court S.D. Ohio Jan. 2, 2026), bankruptcy case no. 25-31806:

Because dismissal under Section 521(i)(1) is automatic and does not result from an order, there’s no rule to vacate dismissal for excusable neglect.

One of the BAPCPA amendments in 2005, Section 521(i)(1), is unforgiving.

If a chapter 13 case is dismissed automatically for failure to file all required papers within 45 days, the bankruptcy court has no power to set aside dismissal under the Bankruptcy Code or the Bankruptcy Rules, for reasons explained in a January 2 opinion by Bankruptcy Judge Tyson A. Crist of Dayton, Ohio.

With counsel, the debtor filed a skeletal chapter 13 petition. The court entered an order giving the debtor a 14-day deadline for filing missing papers, on pain of dismissal. Within 14 days of filing, the debtor filed everything except the statement of monthly income and the calculation of the commitment period.

On the 47th day after filing, the clerk entered a notice of automatic dismissal under Section 521(i)(1). Later the same day, the debtor filed the two missing papers alongside a motion to vacate dismissal.

Although there was no opposition to the motion to vacate dismissal, Judge Tyson undertook an examination of whether he had authority to set aside dismissal under the Bankruptcy Code or Rules.

The outcome turned on Section 521(i)(1), which provides:

Subject to paragraphs (2) and (4) and notwithstanding section 707(a), if an individual debtor in a voluntary case under chapter 7 or 13 fails to file all of the information required under subsection (a)(1) within 45 days after the date of the filing of the petition, the case shall be automatically dismissed effective on the 46th day after the date of the filing of the petition. [Emphasis added.]

Subsection (2) provides that “any party in interest may request the court to enter an order dismissing the case.” On motion by a trustee before the deadlines, Subsection (4) provides that “the court may decline to dismiss the case if the court finds that the debtor attempted in good faith to file all the information required by subsection (a)(1)(B)(iv) and that the best interests of creditors would be served by administration of the case.”

On motion by the debtor “made within 45 days after the date of the filing of the petition,” Subsection (3) provides that “the court may allow the debtor an additional period of not to exceed 45 days to file the information required under subsection (a)(1) if the court finds justification for extending the period for the filing.”

To justify vacating dismissal, the debtor’s counsel only said that the failure to file the two missing papers was the result of “excusable oversight.” However, Judge Crist noted “there was no request made by the Debtor within the initial 45-day period, as permitted by § 521(i)(3),” to extend the deadline for the filing of the two papers. He therefore held that Subsection (3) “does not apply.”

Unlike Bankruptcy Rule 9006(b)(1)(B), “which permits extensions of time after the period expires due to excusable neglect,” Judge Crist observed that “§ 521(i) contains no such provision.” He also noted that the debtor never sought an extension of the deadlines “permitted by Bankruptcy Rule 1007(c)(7).”

Similarly, Judge Crist said that “Bankruptcy Rule 9006(b)(1) cannot save the Debtor’s case.” Even if there were excusable neglect, Judge Crist said that the rule could not apply to the case before him because the rule pertains to “these rules, a notice given under these rules, or a court order.”

Dismissal resulted from a statute, not from a rule or court order. Judge Crist cited courts in agreement that the rule does not apply to statutory dismissal under Section 521(i)(1).

Next, Judge Crist examined whether Rules 59(e) or 60(b) could resurrect the chapter 13 case. Similar to his analysis of Rule 9006(b)(1), he said that the two rules could not apply because “there is no order dismissing the case.”

Judge Crist distinguished the case before him from ones where the debtor was “seeking to use § 521(i) as a sword to dismiss [the] case to stymie recovery by creditors or the trustee.” Those cases, he said, “do not apply to the present circumstance and do not stand for the proposition that a case already [is] automatically dismissed[] in which there is no ‘abuse of the bankruptcy process.’” He said that courts only have “discretion to stop debtors from dismissing cases under § 521(i) in situations in which dismissal would hinder creditors or otherwise be ‘an abuse of the bankruptcy process.’”

Synthesizing the caselaw, Judge Crist said that “there does not appear to be substantial disagreement that once an automatic dismissal occurs pursuant to § 521(i)[,] the dismissal cannot be vacated” when there was no “potential abuse of the bankruptcy process.”

Judge Crist denied the motion to vacate dismissal, but he provided some relief for the debtor, because dismissal may have resulted from counsel’s mistake. He began by saying that dismissal would not preclude the debtor from filing another petition.

Judge Crist scheduled a hearing to consider whether the retainer paid by the debtor before filing was “reasonable and necessary,” since filing the two missing papers was “part of the legal services to be performed in a chapter 13 case in this District.”

If the debtor were to file another case with the same attorney, and if “counsel gives the Debtor credit for all funds already paid to counsel for this case toward the new case (while not increasing the total amount counsel would normally charge for this type of Chapter 13 case),” Judge Crist said he “may” cancel the hearing to consider fees in the dismissed case.