Sonya Laraye Owens

UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
In re
SONYA LARAYE OWENS,
Debtor.
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Case No. 07-00547
(Chapter 13)
Not for Publication in
West’s Bankruptcy Reporter
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER DENYING MOTION TO RECONSIDER
The debtor, Sonya LaRaye Owens, has filed a motion for
reconsideration (Docket Entry (“DE”) No. 57) of the court’s Order
Sustaining Trustee’s Objection to Amended Claimed Exemptions (DE
No. 54, entered January 20, 2008). 	The court denies the motion
for the reasons below.
The Chapter 13 Trustee objected to the debtor’s original
Schedule C, in which the debtor listed her claimed exemptions,
because the debtor failed to specify the laws providing for each
exemption (DE No. 36, filed December 3, 2007). 	The debtor timely
filed an opposition to the Trustee’s objection to her original
Schedule C (DE No. 40, filed December 19, 2007) and filed an
Amended Schedule C on the same date (DE No. 41), but the Amended
Schedule C was ineffective because it did not include a signed
The order below is hereby signed.
Signed: February 28, 2008.
_____________________________
S. Martin Teel, Jr.
United States Bankruptcy Judge
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declaration page, and so was not in proper form, and unless a
proper amended Schedule C were filed, the trustee’s objection to
the exemptions was proper. 	On December 21, 2007, the court
accordingly sustained the Trustee’s objection (erroneously
stating that it was unopposed), but permitted the debtor to file
and serve on the trustee a second amended Schedule C, in proper
form, that specifies the law providing for each exemption
claimed. 	(DE No. 46, entered December 21, 2007).
The debtor filed a second Amended Schedule C on December 27,
2007 (DE No. 51), this time with a signed declaration page and
therefore in proper form. 	The Trustee objected to the debtor’s
second Amended Schedule C (DE No. 52). 	The debtor having failed
to oppose the Trustee’s objection to her second Amended Schedule
C, the court entered an Order Sustaining Trustee’s Objection to
Debtor’s Amended Claim of Exemptions (DE No. 54).
The debtor now asks the court to reconsider that order (DE
No. 54) because she claims that between December 19, 2007 – when
she filed her first Amended Schedule C (DE No. 41) and January
29, 2008 – when she received a copy of the court’s order
sustaining the Trustee’s objection to her second Amended Schedule
C – she had “not received any opportunity to discuss the merits
of her Amended Claimed Exemptions or any indication by the Court
that it would not consider her Written Opposition.” 	However, on
the merits, the trustee’s objection was correct. 	In the second
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Amended Schedule C filed on December 27, 2007, the debtor
specified D.C. Code § 15-501 as the basis for each exemption, but
§ 15-501 contains a number of different exemption provisions, and
a debtor must specify which one is being invoked for a particular
exemption claim. 	For example, § 15-501(a)(3) permits an
exemption whose amount depends on what amount was claimed as an
exemption under § 15-501(a)(14): the court cannot be left to
guess what provision is being relied upon as the basis for each
exemption claimed.
The issue is largely academic. 	A plan has been confirmed,
and so the issue of what the debtor could claim as exempt is no
longer relevant to the issue of whether the debtor’s plan could
be confirmed. 	Once the plan is completed and debts are
discharged, it probably will not matter what property was claimed
as exempt.
But if the debtor wants to still claim exemptions, she is
free to amend her exemptions, once again, to attempt to properly
assert as to each exemption the specific part of § 15-501(a) that
she relies upon in claiming that exemption.
On February 14, 2008, the debtor filed Debtor’s Written
Request for a Hearing (appearing to seek a hearing on the motion
for reconsideration as well as the trustee’s motion to strike the
debtor’s objection to the trustee’s report on claims). 	A hearing
regarding the motion for reconsideration is unnecessary. 	(The
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4	O:\Alex\Orders\Filing Fee Waivers\Order - re - motion to reconsider disallowance of exemptions - Owens.wpd
court by separate order is granting the trustee’s motion to
strike the debtor’s objection to the trustee’s report on claims
and denying the request for a hearing on that motion.) 	It is
thus
ORDERED that the debtor’s motion for reconsideration (DE No.
57) of the court’s Order Sustaining Trustee’s Objection to
Amended Claimed Exemptions (DE No. 54) is DENIED without
prejudice to the debtor’s amending her Schedule C to assert, as
to each item claimed to be exempt, the specific provision of law
she relies upon as allowing the claim. 	It is further
ORDERED that the request in the Debtor’s Written Request for
a Hearing filed on February 14, 2008, for a hearing on the motion
for reconsideration is denied.
[Signed and dated above.]
Copies to: Debtor, Chapter 13 Trustee.
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