Oak Park Real Estate & Estate Planning Blog

If you obtain a settlement after filing a personal injury lawsuit, is that settlement protected in consumer bankruptcy ? Under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, settlements are considered to be a type of property. Accordingly, if you are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy , any money you obtain from a settlement is going to be considered property of the estate and subject to liquidation unless it is exempt. We want to explain more about personal injury settlements and discuss a recent case concerning an NFL player’s settlement for brain damage and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as a result of sustaining concussions while playing football. The recent case suggests that bankruptcy courts may be open to expanding personal injury settlement exemptions in certain cases. How Personal Injury Settlements can Qualify for an Exemption in Illinois Exemptions allow a debtor to retain certain property in the event of bankruptcy. This means that any exempt property will not be liquidated in order t...

When a consumer files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy or Chapter 13 bankruptcy , there are certain types of debt that can not be discharged (or are non-dischargeable). When consumers in Oak Park think about non-dischargeable debts, they often consider debts related to spousal or child support, or tax debt. Yet it is important to understand that debt owed as a result of a personal injury lawsuit also may not be dischargeable if the damages award resulted from a drunk driving claim. To put it another way, if a consumer owes a significant amount of debt related to injuries she caused in a drunk driving accident, is that debt dischargeable? Does the answer to that question change if the debt is related to the consumer’s own medical expenses caused by a drunk driving accident that she caused? We want to answer these questions by discussing the way the U.S. Bankruptcy Code approaches debt discharges and drunk driving accidents. Bankruptcy Discharges for Drunk Driving Accident Verdi...