Nancy J. Whaley v. Manuel Guillen, 972 F.3d 1221

Debtor Rachel Guillen filed Chapter 13 and successfully litigated an adversary proceeding that rendered Wells Fargo’s second mortgage unsecured. Her confirmed plan required $20,172 to unsecured creditors.
Post-confirmation, counsel sought $8,295 in fees for services in the adversary proceeding; Guillen filed a modified plan reducing the unsecured pool to $11,877 to pay those fees.
The Chapter 13 Trustee objected, arguing the modification violated the §1325(a)(4) best-interests-of-creditors test and that res judicata or a required change-in-circumstances rule barred modification.
The bankruptcy court confirmed the modified plan, finding §1329 permits modification without a threshold showing of changed circumstances.
The Trustee appealed; the Eleventh Circuit heard the case directly and affirmed, holding §1329 contains no change-in-circumstances requirement and rejecting the Trustee’s late, abandoned arguments about the fee calculation.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether §1329 requires a debtor to show a change in circumstances before modifying a confirmed Chapter 13 plan	Trustee: Courts should require some change in circumstances to preserve finality and prevent opportunistic modifications	Guillen: §1329’s text contains no such threshold; Congress did not impose one	No. §1329 does not require any change-in-circumstances showing; courts may consider circumstances but cannot impose a statutory prerequisite
Whether res judicata prevents a debtor from seeking modification under §1329	Trustee: Res judicata bars relitigation and thus should prevent modification	Guillen: §1329 is a statutory exception to finality and permits modification	Res judicata does not bar proposing a §1329 modification; Trustee conceded as much
Whether attorney’s fees were properly included in the best-interests-of-creditors calculation and are modifiable post-confirmation	Trustee: Inclusion of the fees and their post-confirmation modification was improper (raised in reply brief)	Guillen: Fees were incurred in an adversary proceeding central to unsecured recovery and appropriately addressed via modification	Court refused to consider these arguments as they were not raised in the opening brief and therefore were abandoned

Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank, 135 S. Ct. 1686 (2015) (confirmation orders have preclusive effect)
Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. Solimino, 501 U.S. 104 (1991) (statutory purpose can displace preclusion principles)
Lamie v. U.S. Tr., 540 U.S. 526 (2004) (courts must not add requirements to plain statutory text)
Sandoz Inc. v. Amgen Inc., 137 S. Ct. 1664 (2017) (textualist canon: Congress’s express choices control statutory meaning)
In re Arnold, 869 F.2d 240 (4th Cir. 1989) (requires unanticipated, substantial change in circumstances to permit modification)
In re Murphy, 474 F.3d 143 (4th Cir. 2007) (reaffirming Arnold’s change-in-circumstances rule)
In re Witkowski, 16 F.3d 739 (7th Cir. 1994) (refusing to graft a change-in-circumstances requirement onto §1329)
Barbosa v. Solomon, 235 F.3d 31 (1st Cir. 2000) (permitting §1329 modifications without a circumstances threshold)
In re Meza, 467 F.3d 874 (5th Cir. 2006) (same)
In re Hoggle, 12 F.3d 1008 (11th Cir. 1994) (bankruptcy courts retain discretion to curb abusive or successive modifications)