Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge MOTZ wrote the opinion, in which Judge ERVIN and Judge WILKINS joined.
OPINION
In this ease a creditor asserts that an order dismissing “with prejudice” a bankrupt debtor’s Chapter 7 petition precluded the debtor from subsequently seeking to discharge debts existing at the time of that order. Although a bankruptcy court certainly has the power to bar a debtor from further litigating the dischargeability of pending debts, the order at issue here is ambiguous. For this reason, we defer to the bankruptcy court’s interpretation of its own order as one limiting subsequent filings, not forever prohibiting the right to seek a discharge of existing debt, and revérse the district court’s contrary holding.
I.
On December 27, 1991, Shirley Mae Tomlin and her husband signed a retail installment contract with Colonial Auto Center, Inc. (“Colonial”) to purchase a pickup truck. Eight months later, Colonial repossessed the truck, then sold it at public auction. . The sale left a deficiency of $5,284.63. On May 28, 1993, Colonial obtained a state court judgment against Tomlin for the amount of the deficiency plus interest and court costs. Subsequently, Colonial obtained another judgment against Tomlin for $1,500.00 plus interest, arising from her failure to pay a deposit owing to Colonial. The balance remaining on these two judgments constitute the debt at issue in this ease.
This is the sixth bankruptcy petition Tomlin has filed in the past seven years. On May 25, 1990, Tomlin and her husband filed a petition pursuant to Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1330 (1994). On August 20, 1990, the bankruptcy court confirmed the Tomlins’ Chapter 13 plan (an amended plan was confirmed on November 14,1990). On January 17,1991, Union Planters National Bank (“Union Planters”) moved for relief from the stay imposed pursuant to Chapter 13. On May 3,1991, the bankruptcy court ordered the stay lifted. On July 15, 1991, the bankruptcy court granted the Tom-lins’ voluntary motion to dismiss.
On July 25, 1991, Tomlin individually filed a second Chapter 13 petition. She did not submit a confirmable plan and on September 12, 1991, Union Planters moved for relief from the stay. On December 6, 1991, the bankruptcy court granted Tomlin’s motion to dismiss the petition.,
On April 24, 1992, Tomlin, again with her husband, filed still another Chapter 13 petition. During the pendency of this petition, the Tomlins neither attended creditors’ meetings nor timely filed bankruptcy schedules. On June 22, 1992,' the bankruptcy court heard the trustee’s motion to dismiss and ordered the Tomlins to cure all defaults by June 26, 1992. The Tomlins failed to abide by that order. On July 6, 1992, the bankruptcy court ordered the petition dismissed.
*936 On September 18, 1992, Tomlin filed a pro se Chapter 7 petition to stop the foreclosure sale of her residence. 11 U.S.C. §§ 701-728 (1994). During the pendency of this petition, Tomlin did not pay the filing fee, did not attend the creditors’ meeting, and did not file schedules. On November 13,1992, the bankruptcy court dismissed the petition.
On December 17,1992, Tomlin filed another pro se Chapter 7 petition again to stop the foreclosure sale of her residence. The next day, after Union Planters filed an emergency motion for relief from the stay, the bankruptcy court lifted the stay in an order in which it noted that it appeared that Tomlin had filed the petition in violation of 11 U.S.C. § 109(g) (1994). A month later, on January 21, 1993, the trustee filed a motion to dismiss Tomlin’s petition “with prejudice” because she had caused unreasonable delay that was prejudicial to her creditors by failing to: appear at an initial creditors’ meeting, timely file her schedules, or prosecute the bankruptcy case she had filed two months before. Tomlin did not respond in any way to the trustee’s motion. After a hearing, which Tomlin did not attend, on February 11,1993, the bankruptcy court issued a dismissal order, stating only that “[f]or the reasons set forth” in the trustee’s motion, Tomlin’s petition would be dismissed “with prejudice.”
Twenty months later, on October 14, 1994, Tomlin filed another Chapter 7 petition; this time she was represented by counsel. On November 15, 1994, the bankruptcy court entered an order discharging Tomlin’s debts.
Prior to that discharge order, Colonial filed the instant action to determine the dis-chargeability of debts pending as of the February 11, 1993 order dismissing “with prejudice” Tomlin’s December 17, 1992 Chapter 7 petition. Colonial moved for summary judgment, asserting that the February 11 order barred Tomlin fi-om subsequently seeking to discharge debts existing at that time.
After a hearing, the bankruptcy court issued an order and a memorandum opinion denying Colonial’s motion for summary judgment. The bankruptcy court reasoned:
[T]he [February 11, 1993] dismissal order, although ambiguously designated simply “with prejudice,” was intended only to invoke the sanction set forth in the first paragraph of § 109(g) — that the debtor be barred from filing another petition for 180 days. The matters addressed in the trustee’s motion do not warrant imposition of the far more serious sanction of making all pending debts nondischargeable. The trustee did not request such a severe sanction in either the motion or at the hearing. And because the debtor did not appear at the hearing, the order dismissing the case was in effect by default.
(footnotes omitted).
Colonial appealed to the district court, which reversed.
Colonial Auto Center, Inc. v. Tomlin,
II.
The first question presented here is a deceptively simple one: is the bankruptcy court’s February 11, 1993 order ambiguous. Our review of this legal question is de novo.
Colonial asserts that “dismissed with prejudice” can have “only one reasonable interpretation,” namely, the final dismissal of all claims that were, or could have been, brought in the action. Brief for Appellee at 8. Thus, Colonial claims that the February 11, 1993 order “dismissing Tomlin’s prior Chapter 7 ease Nvith prejudice’ had the res judicata effect of precluding the subsequent discharge of her debts existing at the filing of the dismissed case.” Id. at 6.
As Colonial points out, generally “[dismissal of an action with prejudice is a complete adjudication of the issues presented by the pleadings and is a bar to a further
*937
action between the parties.”
Harrison v. Edison Bros. Apparel Stores, Inc.,
However, a bankruptcy court rarely uses its authority to bar the discharge of debts in a later case.
See In re Robinson,
This “drastic sanction which may affect substantial rights of the litigant” is usually limited to “extreme situations.”
In re Martin-Trigona,
Far more frequently, if a bankruptcy court disciplines a debtor, it will do so with a different sanction, one that is less drastic, but which is nonetheless often referred to as a dismissal with prejudice. This is a dismissal triggering 11 U.S.C. § 109(g) (1994), which temporarily bans the debtor from filing further petitions. 1 Section 109(g) provides:
Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, no individual or family farmer may be a debtor under this title who has been a debtor in a case pending under this title at any time in the preceding 180 days if—
(1) the case was dismissed by the court for willful failure of the debtor to abide by orders of the court, or to appear before the court in proper prosecution of the case; or
(2) the debtor requested and obtained the voluntary dismissal of the case following the filing of a request for relief from the automatic stay provided by section 362 of this title.
This statute was added to the Bankruptcy Code in 1984 to address the precise abuse of the bankruptcy system at issue here — the filing of meritless petitions in rapid succession to improperly obtain the benefit of the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay provisions as a means of avoiding foreclosure under a mortgage or other security interest.
See,
*938
e.g.,
1 William L. Norton, Jr.,
Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice
§ 18:14 at 18-55-56 (2nd ed. 1994); Jeffrey W. Morris, “Substantive Consumer Bankruptcy Reform in the Bankruptcy Amendments Act of 1984,” 27
Wm. & Mary L.Bev.
91, 101 (1985);
In re Faulkner,
Thus, the Bankruptcy Code provides a bankruptcy court with authority both to bar subsequent discharge of existing debt and to bar successive petitions under § 109(g). Although the two sanctions differ dramatically in purpose and effect, bankruptcy courts often refer to both sanctions as dismissals “with prejudice.”
Even prior to the addition of § 109(g) to the Bankruptcy Code in 1984, bankruptcy courts would order a debtor to cease filing successive petitions and refer to such an order as a “dismissal with prejudice.”
See, e.g., In re Damien,
The language of the 1984 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code apparently has increased the prevalence of this practice. In addition to the adoption of § 109(g), codifying the court’s power to temporarily bar refiling, the 1984 amendments also revised the language of § 349, adding the emphasized language:
Unless the court, for cause, orders otherwise, the dismissal of a case under this title does not bar the discharge, in a later ease under this title, of debts that were dischargeable in the case dismissed; nor does the dismissal of a case under this title prejudice the debtor with regard to the filing of a subsequent petition under this title, except as provided in section 109(g) of this title.
11 U.S.C. § 349(a) (emphasis added).
Indeed, this new language has prompted some speculation that Congress intended to eliminate a bankruptcy court’s power to bar permanently the discharge of existing debt. See, e.g., Dennis Montali, “Important Bankruptcy Code Changes in the Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984,” 332 PLI/Comm 61, 68 (1984) (New § 349(a) states that disqualification under § 109[g] constitutes a dismissal of the case with prejudice. Unfortunately, the amendment to § 349(a) can be read to exclude from the “dismissal with prejudice” label any other dismissal of a bankruptcy case since it now reads: “ ‘ * * * nor does the dismissal of a case * * * prejudice the debtor with regard to the filing of a subsequent petition, except as provided in section 109[g] * * *.’ ”); Michael T. Andrew, “Real Property Transactions and the 1984 Bankruptcy Code Amendments,” 20 Real Prop. Prob. & Tr. J. 47, 72 n. 107 (1985) (“It might be thought that the [language of § 349(a) ] limits the prejudicial impact of a dismissal to that provided in new § 109[g]-”).
Our analysis of the plain language and “statutory scheme” of the statute,
Maurice Sporting Goods, Inc. v. Maxway Corp. (In re Maxway Corp.),
But what is equally clear is that it has become common bankruptcy practice to employ the phrase “dismissed with prejudice” to refer to a temporary bar to filing another petition. As the court observed in
In re Robinson,
The usual remedy for a bad faith filing is a dismissal pursuant to § 109(g), which works to prohibit the filing by a debtor of any case under Title 11 for a period of 180 *939 days. 11 U.S.C. § 109(g). Such a dismissal is frequently and imprecisely referred to (only by bankruptcy practitioners) as a “dismissal with prejudice.”
Id. at 1022 (emphasis added); see also 2 Norton § 38:19 at 33-23 (“Although under Code § 349(a), a case may be dismissed without prejudice, where the court finds cause, the case may be dismissed with prejudice to refiling further petitions.”).
Representative of the many cases in which a § 109(g) bar to refiling has been characterized as a dismissal “with prejudice” are several cases from courts in this circuit.
See, e.g., Jolly v. Great W. Bank (In re Jolly),
There are also numerous similar cases from other jurisdictions.
See, e.g., In re Jones,
Thus, notwithstanding Colonial’s assertions, in the bankruptcy context a “dismissal with prejudice” does not have “only one reasonable interpretation.” Rather, the term “dismissal with prejudice” in bankruptcy eases can either permanently bar discharge of certain debts or it can trigger the bar to filing successive petitions under § 109(g).
Of course, the actual language of a given order may eliminate any ambiguity. The bankruptcy court’s February 11, 1993 order provided that, “[f]or the reasons set forth” in the trustee’s motion to dismiss, the case was “dismissed with prejudice.”
The order contains no specific reference to the § 109(g) bar to filing successive petitions.
Cf. In re Dandy Doughboy Donuts, Inc.,
However, sometimes bankruptcy courts do not include such indicia in dismissal orders but simply dismiss “with prejudice,” when they nonetheless intend to bar refiling.
See e.g., In re Peia,
Although we agree that these cases do not provide a direct precedent for Tomlin’s position, we nonetheless find them relevant. In distinguishing them, Colonial implicitly concedes that language in an accompanying opinion can change the meaning of what Colonial asserts would otherwise be an unambiguous order barring a debtor from subsequently seeking to discharge existing debts. This concession illustrates the slipperiness of a “with prejudice” dismissal in the bankruptcy context.
Nevertheless, Colonial asserts that the dismissal “with prejudice” order in this ease was totally “unqualified” and thus unambiguous. Brief for Appellee at 9. Contrary to Colonial’s assertions, the order at issue here is not a totally “unqualified” dismissal “with prejudice.” Rather, the order provides that the case is dismissed “with prejudice” “for the reasons set forth” in the trustee’s motion.
The trustee moved to dismiss Tomlin’s Chapter 7 petition “with prejudice” only after the bankruptcy court had lifted the automatic stay in an order that specifically noted that Tomlin had apparently filed her petition “in violation of § 109(g).” Moreover, the trustee listed the following grounds in support of its motion to dismiss: (1) Tomlin’s failure to appear at the initial creditors’ meeting; (2) her failure to file her schedules on time, and (3) her failure to prosecute her September 18 bankruptcy case. These reasons hardly constitute examples of the egregious conduct and bad faith, which has generally been regarded as the necessary predicate to barring a debtor from forever seeking to discharge debts existing at the time of the dismissal order.
Cf. Martin-Trigona,
Although when moving to dismiss “with prejudice” the trustee did not specifically invoke § 109(g), the bankruptcy court itself had invoked § 109(g) against Tomlin just two months before when lifting the automatic stay. Moreover, in moving to dismiss “with prejudice” the trustee asserted classic § 109(g) reasons for seeking the dismissal. Accordingly, we believe the bankruptcy court’s order granting the trustee’s motion to dismiss “with prejudice,” “[f]or the reasons set forth” in that motion, is ambiguous. This, of course, does not mean that the order necessarily imposed a § 109(g) sanction. It may have triggered this bar or it may, as Colonial claims, have banned Tomlin from subsequently seeking the discharge of existing debt.
III.
Our remaining task is to determine the meaning of the ambiguous order at issue here. When an order is ambiguous, a court “must construe its meaning, and in so doing may resort to the record upon which the judgment was based.”
Spearman v. J & S Farms, Inc.,
*941
The record here includes the 1995 memorandum opinion of the bankruptcy court interpreting its 1993 dismissal “with prejudice” to mean a bar to refiling under § 109(g). We have previously observed that we will defer to a district court’s interpretation of its own order.
See Anderson v. Stephens,
Monarch Life Ins. Co. v. Ropes & Gray,
.Even though our interpretation of the confirmation order essentially presents a question of law, the bankruptcy court in this case was interpreting its own order of confirmation. We think customary appellate deference is appropriate in these circumstances with respect to the bankruptcy court’s determination that the confirmation order was sufficiently broad to confer “incidental” protection to [the lawyers].
Id. at 983 (emphasis added) (internal citation omitted).
We beliéve that the bankruptcy court’s interpretation of its own order here similarly warrants “customary appellate deference.” The bankruptcy court was “in the best position to interpret its own orders.”
Texas N.W. Ry. Co. v. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Ry. Co. (In re Chicago, Rock Island & Pac. R.R. Co.),
Examination of the record demonstrates that the bankruptcy court’s interpretation of its order is reasonable in light of the facts of this ease. The bankruptcy court noted that the trustee’s motion did “not warrant imposition of the far more serious sanction of making all pending debts nondischargeable. The trustee did not request such a severe sanction in either the motion or at the hearing.” Instead, the trustee cited Tomlin’s failure to attend the initial creditors’ meeting and failure to file her schedules. The trustee’s motion stated that Tomlin had caused unreasonable delay and had prejudiced her creditors by this behavior. No doubt Tomlin’s behavior constitutes an abuse of the protection afforded her by the bankruptcy system. Her purpose seemed clear; by continuously filing petitions, the automatic stay prevented foreclosure action on her home. This is the very behavior for which Congress formulated § 109(g). 1 Norton § 18:14 at 18-58-59. The bankruptcy court’s order — as interpreted by that court — was the most appropriate sanction for the abuse Tomlin committed. By prohibiting her from filing another petition immediately after the dismissal of the case, the court prevented Tomlin from committing the very behavior *942 that triggered the sanctions in the first place. 3
Nor does the fact that the order at issue here contains no finding of willfulness undermine the bankruptcy court’s conclusion it was intended to trigger a § 109(g) sanction. Colonial is quite correct that “the plain language” of § 109(g) bars a subsequent filing sanction only if the bankruptcy court finds a previous case was dismissed because of a debtor’s “willful failure” to abide by a court order. Brief for Appellee at 15. But that finding need not be made at the time of the earlier dismissal; it can be made when the bankruptcy court is later called upon to determine if § 109(g) bars a subsequent filing.
See Montgomery v. Ryan (In re Montgomery),
In the ease at hand, the trustee’s motion clearly indicated that Tomlin’s behavior demonstrated a willful failure to prosecute her case. That the bankruptcy court made no finding of willfulness in the 1993 order is therefore not determinative. If Tomlin had filed a subsequent action within 180 days of the previously dismissed action, the court could have made that finding at that time based on a review of Tomlin’s record in the earlier proceedings.
Finally, Colonial heavily relies on
In re Smith,
Smith provides no authority for Colonial’s position here because the order in Smith, unlike that here, apparently was an unadorned dismissal “with prejudice.” More *943 over, the Smith order was issued in response to the trustee’s request to “dismiss the ease or ... deny the discharge.” 18B B.R. at 467. In contrast, the trustee in the instant case never requested that Tomlin be denied the right to seek to discharge her debts in the future, but instead asked that her case be dismissed on typical § 109(g) grounds. Thus, the Smith order differs from that presented here in that it apparently was an unqualified and unambiguous order preventing the debtor from subsequently seeking to discharge existing debt.
Even if the Smith order were identical to that at issue here (and there is no indication it was), our holding would still not be inconsistent with that of Smith. Our conclusion that the order before us is ambiguous does not signify that it was definitively a § 109(g) order. We deferred to the interpretation of the court that fashioned the order to resolve this ambiguity. In Smith, the court that fashioned the order never opined as to its meaning. If it had done so, a court subsequently examining the order might well have deferred to the original court’s interpretation, as we have done here.
IV.
For these reasons, we reverse the order of the district court, which had reversed the bankruptcy court, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Notes
. The Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984, Pub.L. 98-353, 98 Stat. 352, 269 (1984), added new subsection (f) to § 109 to provide a 180-day bar to filing. This was redesignated as subsection (g) by § 253 of the Bankruptcy Judges, United States Trustees, and Family Farmer Bankruptcy Act of 1986, Pub.L. 99-554, 100 Stat. 3105 (1986). Throughout this opinion, it will be referred to as § 109(g).
. Of course, as the district court recognized, a bankruptcy court can impose sanctions under § 109(g) without dismissing a case "with prejudice.”
See Colonial Auto Center,
. Of course, similar conduct has also been found to merit the imposition of a permanent bar to discharge the debts existing at the time of the dismissal. Some courts seem to have equated the "willful failure” to obey a court order necessary to trigger a § 109(g) sanction with the “bad faith" leading to a permanent bar to the discharge of the debts.
See, e.g., In re McClure,