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Some times circumstances change during the course of a bankruptcy filing that my necessitate converting your case from a Chapter 13 to a Chapter 7 or vice versa. If you circumstances have changed, you should consult with an attorney before taking any action as there are qualifications and implications for converting your case.  We usually […]
The post Filing Bankruptcy in Michigan: Can I Convert My Chapter 7 or 13 Case to a Different Type of Bankruptcy? appeared first on Acclaim Legal Services, PLLC.

 
“Wealth is the transfer of money from the impatient to the patient.”  Warren Buffett
 
Deborah Sutton writes an excellent article in The Desert News about budgeting for the fun things in life. The word “budget” has a negative vibe to it. To budget is to deny yourself, to live within your limited means, and that implies not enjoying as much fun as when you don’t live on a budget. Living on a budget is about as much fun as going on a celery and oatmeal diet.
 

The human brain has a lot psychological resistance to the entire idea of budgeting and dieting,” said financial psychologist Brad Klontz. To purposely cut out enjoyable things creates a sense of depravation and it leads to overspending and overeating.

According to Klontz, establishing a budget with a “Fun Fund” is essential in order to motivate a person to stick to the spending plan.

When people get really excited about a certain goal, like a vacation or a new TV, saving is almost effortless. It becomes fun to do it.

Nobody is going to stick to a high fiber diet that has no flavor, no matter how healthy it is. Burn out is the common problem. The same is true with financial planning—there must be a constant pattern of rewards to make the process palatable. There should be short-term rewards and long-term rewards as well.
The key to making the Fun Fund work is to establish separate bank accounts that are funded with direct deposits each payday. Most payroll departments can directly deposit into 3 or more accounts. If not, your bank can automatically move money from one account to another each payday if you request it.
Another key to making the Fun Fund work is to keep the contribution small. All it takes is $20 per week to be able to purchase a $500 television in 25 weeks. To stay motivated you need to be rewarded. You need to make getting out of debt a game--a fun game. It is also okay to have more than one Fun Fund so that you can finance short-term and long-term rewards at the same time.
Getting out of debt in a marriage takes teamwork. Opposites seem to attract, and most marriages have a miser and a spender personality. The trick to establishing true teamwork is to make sure that each spouse is getting what they need, and that’s never going to happen unless the more impulsive spouse sees a reward for good behavior. Nobody is going to stick to a budget that is all work and no play.
Changing habits is never easy, and the hardest part is the beginning. Learning how to prepay for the fun things is life is a lesson worth learning.
Image courtesy of Flickr and Stephen Ippolito.

http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/Adam Brown is a bankruptcy attorney for Dexter & Dexter, a debt relief agency helping people file for bankruptcy.

The Northern District of Florida’s decision in Brenner, et al. v. Scott, etc., 999 F.Supp. 2d 1278 (2014) about the constitutionality of limiting marriage only to between a man and a woman has been much in the news.  The Court makes on page 1290 references that United States Supreme Court “summary dispositions” bind lower federal courts – unless “doctrinal developments in the Supreme Court undermine the decision.” Summary disposition is explained in Alex Hemmer's 2013 article, "Courts as Managers: American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock and Summary Disposition at the Roberts Court."

Summary Disposition
"Summary dispositions" are provided for by Supreme Court Rule 16. Rule 16 provides for the "disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari." It provides that after the Court considers the certiorari briefs (which are shorter than the later full merits briefs), it "will enter an appropriate order" and that the "order may be a summary disposition on the merits."

Hemmer notes that this rule does not explain what a summary disposition is, when or  why such an order is appropriate, and what precedential value it hold. He explains that such "questions are left to the Court to work out in practice" and that summary disposition orders place an "ambiguous role" and have "amorphous boundaries."

Three Types of Summary Dispositions
Hemmer explains that "[o]ver the past forty years, the Court has relief on three common, if controversial, forms of summary disposition" as follows:

• summary orders, granting the certiorari petition and affirming or reversing the judgment without explanation (generally per curiam - "by the Court" or unsigned) 
• summary opinions, granting the certiorari petition and affirming or reversing the judgment with an explanation, usually with a brief discussion of the facts and issues involved (generally per curiam) 
• reconsideration orders - "grant, vacate, and remand" ("GVR"), here the court grants the certiorari petition, vacates the judgment below and remands the case to the lower court for "reconsideration". Hemmer, making references to Supreme Court cases, that technically a GVR is does "not amount to a final determination on the merits" but rather merely indicates that the Court believes that upon reconsideration, there is a "reasonable probability" that the lower court would reject a legal premise upon which it relied

In his article, Hemmer reviews the rate of the use of these three types of summary disposition in the Warren (alot of summary dispositions with little explanation), Burger (little summary orders, alot of GVRs), and Robert's Courts (use of summary orders and GVR, but with expansion of use in a managerial capacity).   Hemmer opines that this expansion of use is for not only where the decision below did not rely on changed legal premises or present clear error but for the court below to "consider arguments or case law that they could have relief on but did not"- that is "in search of errors."  He notes Justice Scalia's lack of favor - "GVR-in-light-of-nothing."  
Functions of Appellate CourtsHemmer and the authors he cites explain that generally courts of appeals can have two capacities: "a lawmaking capacity in which they" "announce, clarify, and harmonizes the rules of decisions" and "an error-correcting capacity, in which they" "determine if prejudicial errors were committed" in "applying those rules to facts."  
Hemmer cites an author who stated that the Supreme Court "is not, and has never been, primarily concerned with the correction of errors in lower court decisions."  Hemmer questions the suitability of "summary opinions" for "making law""because they are not the products of merits briefing and oral argument." Hemmer argues that the best way to understand "summary dispositions" (and that the way the Roberts Court does understand it), is as a "tool to manage and oversee the docket of the lower court" and to ensure that the "lower-court decision take account of intervening precedent without the Court spending its own time and energy on cases that pose similar issues." Hemmer opines that in this manner, the Court acts in a "managerial capacity" rather than in a "lawmaking" or "error-correcting capacity." 
Merits or Non-Merits DecisionsProfessor Vikram Amar explains in a blog post, that these summary dispositions,  are based "merely on the certiorari-stage briefs, without the benefit of arguments or merits briefings." He explains that in GVR dispositions, the Court "is formally not weighing in on the merits but merely giving the lower court a first opportunity to apply the intervening decision." But that the some types of summary dispositions do reach the merits of the appeal. 
Precendential Value of Supreme Court Summary Dispositions In Hardwick v. Bowers, 706 F.2d 1202 (11th Cir. 1985), the Court cited the general rule of Hick v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 344 (1975) that a "summary affirmance of the Supreme Court has binding precedential effect." 
Limitations on the Scope But the Court in Hick also held that if the summary disposition lack an explanation of its reasons, its "holding must be carefully limited." The Hardwick  Court stated that a summary affirmance "represents an approval by the Supreme Court of the judgment below but should not be taken as an endorsement of the reasoning of the lower court" and that "finding the precise limits of a summary affirmance has proven to be no easy task."  The Harwick Court  explains that a court "seeking to identify the issues governed by a summary affirmance should examine the issues necessarily decided in reaching the result as well as in the jurisdictional statement" and cited another Supreme Court case that a summary affirmance is binding to "precise issues presented and necessarily decided." 
Subsequent Developments   The Hardwick Court also reviewed that a "summary disposition binds lower court only until the Supreme Court indicates otherwise" but "developments subsequent " subsequent to a summary disposition" may "undermine whatever controlling weight it once may have possessed." 
Hardwick reviews that "[d]octrinal developments need not take the form of an outright reversal of the earlier case. The Supreme Court may indicate its willingness to reverse or reconsider a prior opinion with such clarity that a lower court may property refuse to follow what appears to be binding precedent."  The Court further states that "[e]ven less clear-cut expressions by the Supreme Court can erod an earlier summary disposition because summary actions by the Court do not carry the full precedential weight of a decision announced in a written opinion after consideration of briefs and oral argument." 

Jordan E. Bublick - Miami Bankruptcy Lawyer - Kendall & Aventura Offices - (305) 891-4055 - www.bublicklaw.com