Life Care Planning in Bankruptcy Court a Case Study

This author had the unique experience of testifying in Federal Bankruptcy Court to defend an injured woman against her creditors during a proceeding whereby the bank trustees were attempting to obtain the moneys provided to the injured woman specifically ear-marked for her life care planning needs during the settlement of her prior personal injury litigation. As this author was the plaintiff ’s retained life care planning expert in the earlier personal injury case, it was a natural progression to then switch roles in order to defend the injured woman’s rights to keep the settlement money for the use of her future medical care needs, rather than to have to use it for paying off debts that had been incurred directly due to the personal injury incident itself. A review of the literature could not locate any such published circumstances whereby a life care planner was allowed to testify to opinions in the course of a bankruptcy hearing being heard in Federal Court.