In re VanderPol, Case No. 19-10072 EEB

Debtor inadvertently omitted an unsecured creditor from his schedules and his creditor matrix and the creditor did not receive timely notice of the case. The creditor later filed a late proof of claim and motion to deem the proof of claim timely. The chapter 13 trustee objected, arguing that Fed. R. Bankr. P. 3002(c) lists the only circumstances in which a creditor may file a late proof of claim and that none of them applied to this case. The Court overruled the objection, concluding that Rule 3002(c)(6) applied. That subsection, by its express terms, permits a late filed proof of claim if notice was insufficient because the debtor failed to file the creditor matrix required by Rule 1007(a). Under a plain language interpretation, this Rule would not apply because the Debtor had timely filed a creditor matrix, albeit an incomplete one. However, the Court concluded that this interpretation would render the Rule superfluous because other requirements would dictate the dismissal of the bankruptcy case due to the untimely filing of a creditor matrix long before any creditor would face a bar against an untimely proof of claim. Thus, the Court held that Rule 3002(c)(6) should be read to apply where a debtor fails to list a particular creditor on the creditor matrix, thereby preventing adequate notice to that creditor.