SCOTUS Ruling on US Trustee Fees Shows Reluctance on Remedy Issue

The US Supreme Courts’ decision to summarily vacate the Tenth Circuit’s ruling on the constitutionality of the US Trustee’s fee hike further signified the justices’ reluctance to wade into whether bankrupt debtors who paid them should be refunded.

The high court’s June 13 “grant, vacate and remand” (GVR) order on US Trustee v. In re John Q. Hammons Fall 2006 LLC essentially tasks the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to review again its ruling that the increased fees were unconstitutional because it didn’t uniformly apply to all 50 states.

But the GVR order perplexed bankruptcy practitioners, as ...