October 2012
By: Doug Candeub
American Bankruptcy Institute Journal
Last year's Stern v. Marshall ruling—the U.S. Supreme Court’s long-awaited scrutiny of Congress’s 1984 fix to the part of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 that the Court held unconstitutional in Marathon Pipe Line—has shaken the ground of bankruptcy litigation. To be sure, the level of disruption caused by Stern v. Marshall has been—and remains—a subject of great debate, with the "narrow" camp and the "broad" camp staking out their competing views. But the evidence of a widespread impact from Stern is unmistakable. Now a set of revisions to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure is being proposed in an effort to remedy a fissure exposed by Stern. This article takes a close look at the proposals.
