Woman can keep bonus despite debt

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted August 23, 2019 11:15 AM

Every year Jennifer Brown worked for Caterpillar Inc. she received a bonus under the company’s short-term incentive plan, or STIP. So when Brown petitioned for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in central Illinois on Aug. 17, 2018, the trustee calculated the appropriate pro rata share and requested a turnover order for 62.7% of that year’s bonus, based on the “sufficiently rooted in the prebankruptcy past” standard used by the U.S. Supreme Court in Segal v. Rochelle, 382 U.S. 375 (1966).Segal concluded that the …

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