John Oliver and Consumer Law YouTube Videos

I'm trying something new this year. My consumer bankruptcy policy seminar students will read many great articles by many wonderful academics on this blog, as well as others, but this year, their "reading" will also include a great deal of YouTube.

90% of the videos are John Oliver segments from his excellent show on HBO, Last Week Tonight. They cover particular "products" (student loans, credit reports, debt buying, payday loans, auto loans, retirement plans and financial advisors) and middle class issues (minimum wage, wage gap, wealth gap, paid family leave).

I thought Credit Slips readers might enjoy seeing them all in one place. Here they are in no particular order. Let me know if I've missed any!

Clawing Back Tuition Payments

Are tuition payments for an adult child's education, while the parents are insolvent, constructively fraudulent? As the WSJ reported this week, Bankruptcy Judge Hoffman (D. Mass.) recently held that they are not. But other courts have disagreed. In fact, there seem to be courts on both sides of this (although apparently, no circuit decisions yet).

In this latest case, In re Palladino, the debtors made tuition payments for their adult daughter's college education. There was no question that the debtors were insolvent when they made payments or that they did so within the last two years. The only question was whether the debtors received "reasonably equivalent value" (REV) under section 548 of the Bankruptcy Code (and Massachusett's UFTA). That section defines value as "property, or satisfaction or securing of a present or antecedent debt of the debtor, but does not include an unperformed promise to furnish support to the debtor or to a relative of the debtor." 548 (a)(2)(A). Courts have interpreted REV as requiring an economic benefit, which could be indirect, but has to be "concrete" and "quantifiable."

Here, the court explained that

[The Palladinos] believed that a financially self-sufficient daughter offered them an economic benefit and that a college degree would directly contribute to financial self-sufficiency. I find that motivation to be concrete and quantifiable enough ... A parent can reasonably assume that paying for a child to obtain an undergraduate degree will enhance the financial well-being of the child which in turn will confer an economic benefit on the parent. This, it seems to me, constitutes a quid pro quo that is reasonable and reasonable equivalence is all that is required.

Opn. at 8 (emphasis mine).

Can a Nonprofit Startup Fix the Pro Se Problem in Bankruptcy?

For the past four years, Jim Greiner, Lois Lupica, and I have been working on the Financial Distress Research Project (FDRP)*, a large randomized control trial trying to find out what works to help individuals in financial distress. As part of the project, a large number (70+ at last count) of student volunteers have created self-help materials aimed at these individuals, using the latest learnings in adult education, psychology, public health, and more. Part of our work has focused on creating a set of materials to help pro se filers through a no asset Chapter 7 bankruptcy (I blogged about the student loan AP materials here).