The law is stacked against student loan borrowers in many ways which forces student loan lawyers to be creative so when that results in an outright victory for a borrower it is a fine day in the neighborhood. Some of mine include the following:
(1) Got sanctions in NH Bankruptcy Court against ECMC for its continued collection of federal student loans in violation of the court order finding they had had been repaid prior to the the bankruptcy filing. Both the First Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel and First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the result.
(2) Used the objection procedure for Proof of Claims in a chapter 13 bankruptcy to secure a ruling that debtor was not liable for $150,000 of private student loans owed to Discover and Sallie Mae because the court found debtor’s name had been forged onto the loan documents.
(3) Used the objection procedure for Proof of Claims in a chapter 13 bankruptcy to secure a ruling that various National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts did not have standing to collect the debt.
(4) Filed Motions to Dismiss in several lawsuits in NH Superior Court against various National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts. Courts sustained the objection when NCSLT could not prove they owned the debt, and, therefore, did not have standing to file a lawsuit.
(5) Discharged $300,000 of federal and private student loans in New Hampshire Bankruptcy Court as an undue hardship.
(6) Discharged $30,000 of federal student loan debt in NH Bankruptcy Court as an undue hardship.
(7) Student Loan Solutions, LLC (“SLS”) bought a lot of old student loan debt from Bank of America back in 2017. BOA sold this student loan debt off because borrowers hadn’t been paying for years, sometimes close to a decade. I’m guessing BOA sold this debt to SLS because it realized much of this debt was beyond the usual statute of limitation. SLS bought the debt and is now claiming it can sue on this debt because it is entitled to a special statute of limitation reserved for contracts under seal. This is an archaic concept from colonial times where contracts would be sealed with wax. There is language buried in the promissory note talking about it being a contract under seal, but a judge in this case disagreed finding that this did not qualify as a contract under seal and the 3 year statute of limitation applied.
(8) Filed a Motion to Dismiss a $50,000 private student loan lawsuit by U.S. Asset Management in NH Superior Court because it was beyond the statute of limitation.
Plaintiff claimed the 6 year statute of limitation for negotiable instruments applied, however, the supplemental response indicating the student loan did not qualify as a negotiable instrument led to a stipulation of voluntary dismissal with prejudice, meaning my client can never be sued again for this debt.