## Facts

- O’Brien, a Chapter 7 debtor, was involved in post-divorce litigation with his former spouse concerning alleged breaches of, and requested changes to, an earlier divorce decree and separation agreement.
- After trial, the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court found both O’Brien and his ex-wife in contempt related to the decree and separation agreement.
- On December 2, 2005, the probate court entered an attorney’s fee award for legal services provided by Stephen Crowne and ordered O’Brien to pay Crowne from O’Brien’s retirement accounts.
- O’Brien filed a Chapter 7 petition on December 7, 2005, before Crowne received payment on the fee award.
- In the bankruptcy schedules, O’Brien listed the retirement accounts and claimed them as exempt.
- Crowne received notice of the exemption claim but did not file a timely objection to the claimed exemption.
- Crowne filed a motion seeking relief from (or a determination of inapplicability of) the automatic stay, contending the fee award was a domestic support obligation and that he could collect it from the retirement accounts as directed by the probate court.
- O’Brien opposed, arguing that the automatic stay and the unchallenged exemption protected the retirement accounts from collection.

## Issues

1. Whether the probate-court attorney’s fee award entered in post-divorce contempt litigation constitutes a “domestic support obligation” under the Bankruptcy Code.
2. Whether the automatic stay bars collection of that obligation from the debtor’s retirement accounts after the debtor claimed the accounts as exempt and the creditor failed to object to the exemption.
3. Whether exempt property remains liable for a domestic support obligation notwithstanding the exemption and the lack of a timely exemption objection.

## Decision

- The court determined that the fee award was a domestic support obligation.
- The court concluded that collection of the domestic support obligation from the debtor’s retirement accounts was not barred by the automatic stay on the facts presented.
- The court held that the debtor’s exemption claim—and the creditor’s failure to object to it—did not prevent enforcement of the domestic support obligation against the retirement accounts.

## Legal Principles

- Whether an obligation arising from divorce-related proceedings is a domestic support obligation depends on its nature and function in the domestic-relations context, not merely its label or payee.
- Domestic support obligations receive special treatment in bankruptcy, including statutory limits on the protection otherwise afforded by the automatic stay.
- Exemptions generally protect exempt property from prepetition debts, but the Bankruptcy Code preserves liability of exempt property for domestic support obligations.
- A creditor’s failure to object to a debtor’s claimed exemption does not, by itself, eliminate statutory rights to enforce a domestic support obligation against exempt property.

## Conclusion

In re O’Brien holds that a probate-court attorney’s fee award arising from post-divorce contempt litigation may qualify as a domestic support obligation and, as such, may be collected from the debtor’s retirement accounts even though the debtor claimed the accounts as exempt and the creditor did not object to the exemption; the automatic stay did not prevent that enforcement in the circumstances of the case.


In re O'Brien, 367 B.R. 242 (2007)