FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MELISSA CARIN MATHER BOBKA, No. 18-55688 Appellant, D.C. No. v. 3:17-cv-02380- GPC-AGS TOYOTA MOTOR CREDIT CORPORATION, Appellee. OPINION Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Gonzalo P. Curiel, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted October 16, 2019 Pasadena, California Filed August 3, 2020 Before: Jacqueline H. Nguyen and Eric D. Miller, Circuit Judges, and Eric N. Vitaliano, * District Judge. Opinion by Judge Miller * The Honorable Eric N. Vitaliano, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. 2 MATHER BOBKA V. TOYOTA MOTOR CREDIT CORP. SUMMARY ** Bankruptcy The panel affirmed the district court’s affirmance of the bankruptcy court’s ruling that a creditor’s post-discharge collection efforts on a vehicle lease did not violate the discharge injunction in a Chapter 7 case. The debtor sent the creditor a signed lease assumption agreement before she received her bankruptcy discharge. The panel held that debtors’ lease assumptions survive discharge even if they are not reaffirmed under 11 U.S.C. § 524(c). The panel also held that the debtor and the creditor mutually waived the procedural requirements for a lease assumption by a debtor under § 365(p). COUNSEL Michael G. Doan (argued), Doan Law Firm, Oceanside, California, for Appellant. Aaron J. Malo (argued) and Karin Dougan Vogel, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, San Diego, California, for Appellee. Jan T. Chilton and Mark Joseph Kenney, Severson & Werson, San Francisco California, for Amicus Curiae American Financial Services Association. ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. MATHER BOBKA V. TOYOTA MOTOR CREDIT CORP. 3 Tara Twomey, National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center, San Jose, California, for Amici Curiae National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center and National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. OPINION MILLER, Circuit Judge: When Melissa Mather Bobka filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, she wanted to keep her leased Toyota Rav4. She called Toyota and was told that to keep the vehicle, she would need to assume the lease. Two months later, Mather sent Toyota a signed assumption agreement. She received her bankruptcy discharge the next day. By then, Mather had stopped making lease payments, and when Toyota sought to collect Mather’s past-due balance, she refused to pay. Mather asserted that her obligations under the lease did not survive the bankruptcy discharge because the assumption agreement had not been reaffirmed under 11 U.S.C. § 524(c). When Toyota continued its collection efforts, Mather sought sanctions, alleging that Toyota had violated section 524’s discharge injunction. She also argued that the assumption agreement was independently invalid because she and Toyota had not followed the required procedures for a lease assumption under 11 U.S.C. § 365(p). The bankruptcy court and the district court rejected Mather’s interpretation of the Bankruptcy Code. We agree with both courts that lease assumptions survive discharge even if they are not reaffirmed, and that Mather ...
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