District-level analytics and screening tools to support Chapter 13 trustee oversight of discharge eligibility.
Section 1328(f) bars Chapter 13 discharge for repeat filers who received a prior discharge within the statutory window. The test is objective: three data points determine the outcome. Yet no systematic mechanism exists to verify eligibility before discharge is entered.
The current process relies on debtor self-reporting through Question 9 on the bankruptcy petition. When attorneys fail to check filing history -- or when debtors provide inaccurate information -- cases proceed through confirmation and years of plan payments without anyone verifying that discharge is legally available.
Analysis of FJC Integrated Database records identified 391,951 Chapter 13 cases filed by debtors with prior filings where discharge eligibility was never verified at the docket level. These represent cases where the court entered discharge, denied discharge, or the case was dismissed -- without any documented check of 1328(f) compliance.
The screening tools and published data support trustee oversight in several ways:
The national dashboard shows dismissal rates for every federal bankruptcy district. Trustees can compare their district against national norms and identify whether local dismissal patterns suggest systemic issues with case viability.
Districts and individual attorneys with elevated prior filer rates may warrant closer scrutiny. When a high percentage of an attorney's caseload consists of repeat filers, the probability of 1328(f) violations increases. The dashboard and state pages publish these rates.
Dismissal velocity -- the median time from filing to dismissal -- is a leading indicator of case viability. Cases that dismiss rapidly after filing often lacked viability from the start. When rapid dismissal velocity correlates with high prior filer rates and elevated dismissal rates for a specific attorney, it can signal a pattern of filing discharge-barred cases.
No single metric is conclusive. The screening identifies statistical outliers for manual review. A trustee finding an attorney with a 70% dismissal rate, 40% prior filer concentration, and a median dismissal velocity 3x faster than the district norm has a strong basis for pulling petitions and checking Question 9 responses against PACER filing history.
Interactive map with district-level dismissal, discharge, and prior filer rates.
See which districts have been screened and explore state-level data.
Compare metrics across districts side by side.
Court decisions on 1328(f) enforcement, including In re Filice.
Statutory framework, timing rules, and prior discharge analysis.
Open-source screener, methodology, and documentation.
The screening methodology is fully documented at 1328f.org, including: