Filter Results

11.5.3.2 Criminal Fines

CategoriesCart
Highlight Updates
  1. Collection Actions
  2. Chapters
  3. Chapter 11 Criminal Justice Debt
  4. 11.5 Criminal Justice Debt and Bankruptcy
  5. 11.5.3 Dischargeability of Criminal Justice Debts Under Chapter 7
  6. 11.5.3.2 Criminal Fines

11.5.3.2 Criminal Fines

Fines—financial obligations ostensibly established to serve a wholly punitive function—are not dischargeable in a chapter 7 bankruptcy.276 This includes traffic and parking fines.277 However, collection costs related to state criminal fines that are not for the benefit of a governmental unit may be dischargeable.278

Footnotes

  • 276 McNelis v. Verano (In re McNelis), 2013 WL 5376525 (Bankr. M.D. Pa. Sept. 25, 2013); In re Farnsworth, 283 B.R. 503 (Bankr. W.D. Tenn. 2002). But see Wayne Cty. v. Newell (In re Newell), 554 B.R. 825 (E.D. Mich. 2016) (attorney fees and costs awarded to governmental unit in civil case were not within scope of section 523(a)(7)).

  • 277 In re Branch, 525 B.R. 388 (Bankr. E.D. Mich. 2015); In re Stevens, 184 B.R. 584 (Bankr. W.D. Wash. 1995); In re Gallagher, 71 B.R. 138 (Bankr. N.D. Ill. 1987) (parking fines not dischargeable regardless of lack of evidence they were “imposed by a court”).

  • 278 In re Dickerson, 510 B.R. 289 (Bankr. D. Idaho 2014) (collection costs related to state criminal fines were not for benefit of governmental unit and therefore were dischargeable).