Can You Sue Someone Who Has Filed Chapter 13 Bankruptcy?

You generally cannot sue someone who has filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy. The moment the petition is filed, a federal court order called the automatic stay freezes nearly every lawsuit and collection effort against the debtor, and it stays in place for the three to five years the repayment plan runs. There are real exceptions — criminal cases, most family law matters, some tax proceedings, and debts tied to fraud or intentional harm — and there are ways to ask the bankruptcy court to let you proceed. But the default is a hard stop, and ignoring it can cost you far more than the underlying claim.

Why the Automatic Stay Blocks You

Federal law imposes the automatic stay the instant a Chapter 13 petition is filed. It halts pending lawsuits, prevents new ones, and blocks wage garnishments, foreclosures, collection calls, demand letters, and virtually every other attempt to collect a pre-bankruptcy debt.¹ The stay binds every creditor whether or not you’ve received formal notice from the debtor’s attorney.

If you had a case pending in state or federal court, it stops where it stands. If you were about to file, you can’t. Even reporting the debt to a credit bureau as newly delinquent can violate the stay.

What Happens If You Sue Anyway

Pushing forward can be expensive. A person injured by a willful violation of the stay can recover actual damages, court costs, and attorney’s fees, and courts can add punitive damages in serious cases.¹ The Ninth Circuit has held that recoverable attorney’s fees include the cost of bringing the violation action itself, so the debtor can effectively make you pay for the lawsuit against you.²

“Willful” here is a low bar. You don’t need to intend harm. You just need to know about the bankruptcy and take collection action anyway. If you’re unsure whether the stay reaches your situation, stop and check with a bankruptcy attorney before you do anything else.

Lawsuits You Can Still Bring

Some categories of legal action are carved out of the stay because Congress decided other interests outweigh the debtor’s need for breathing room.¹

Criminal Prosecutions

A Chapter 13 filing does not pause a criminal case. Fraud prosecutions, embezzlement charges, and every other criminal proceeding continue as if the bankruptcy never happened. Criminal fines and court-ordered restitution also survive the case and cannot be wiped out through the repayment plan.³

Family Law Actions

The stay does not block actions to establish paternity, set or modify child support or alimony, resolve custody or visitation, finalize a divorce, or address domestic violence. Dividing property that belongs to the bankruptcy estate may be paused, but the family court proceedings themselves go forward. Collecting a domestic support obligation from property that isn’t part of the estate — garnishing wages for child support, for instance — also continues.

Tax Assessment

The IRS and state tax agencies can audit the debtor, issue deficiency notices, and demand unfiled returns during the case. Active seizure — levying accounts or taking property — is generally stayed, but determining what the debtor owes is not.

You Usually Can’t Sue a Cosigner Either

Chapter 13 carries a protection that Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 don’t: the codebtor stay. If someone cosigned a consumer loan with the debtor, you generally cannot pursue the cosigner while the Chapter 13 case is open.⁴ Many creditors assume the cosigner is fair game because they didn’t file bankruptcy. They aren’t.

The codebtor stay only covers consumer debts, meaning debts for personal, family, or household purposes. Business debts fall outside it. The stay also doesn’t apply if the cosigner actually received the benefit of the loan, or if the debtor’s plan doesn’t propose to pay the debt. In those cases you can ask the court to lift the codebtor stay. When your request is based on the plan not covering the debt, the stay lifts automatically 20 days after the request unless the debtor or cosigner files a written objection.

Asking the Court to Lift the Stay

The stay isn’t necessarily permanent for the life of the case. You can file a motion in the bankruptcy court asking to lift or modify it. The court must grant relief in several situations:

For cause, including lack of adequate protection. If property securing your debt is losing value while the debtor misses plan payments, you can argue your collateral isn’t protected. A car depreciating during a payment lapse is the classic example.
Where the debtor has no equity in the property and the property isn’t necessary to make the repayment plan work.
Where the filing was part of a scheme to delay or defraud creditors, such as suspect real property transfers or serial bankruptcy filings.

The debtor can oppose the motion. On an adequate protection argument, the debtor may offer periodic cash payments to offset the decline in your collateral’s value, a replacement lien on other property, or another arrangement the court finds equivalent.⁵ If the debtor makes a credible offer, the court will often keep the stay in place. If the court grants relief, you can resume your lawsuit or collection activity, but only to the extent the order allows.

Suing Inside the Bankruptcy Case

Some claims have to be resolved within the bankruptcy itself, through what’s called an adversary proceeding. These are lawsuits filed inside the bankruptcy case, with complaints, discovery, motions, and trials, all heard by the bankruptcy judge.⁶

This is where you go if you believe the debtor incurred your debt through fraud, lied on a credit application, or caused you willful injury. Waiting for the case to end and then suing usually isn’t an option — you generally have to raise dischargeability through an adversary proceeding during the case, and the bankruptcy judge decides whether that debt survives. Timing matters. Talk to a bankruptcy attorney early rather than assuming you can litigate it later.

If you already had a civil case pending against the debtor when the Chapter 13 was filed, you may be able to move it to the bankruptcy court rather than starting over. Federal law lets any party remove a civil claim related to the bankruptcy case to the district court where it’s pending.⁷ Removal isn’t available for Tax Court proceedings or for government agencies enforcing regulatory authority, and the bankruptcy court can send a removed case back to state court on equitable grounds.

File a Proof of Claim Instead

For most creditors during a Chapter 13, filing a proof of claim is the practical alternative to suing. This is a formal document that tells the court and the trustee how much you’re owed and what type of debt it is. The trustee distributes plan payments based on filed claims, not on the debtor’s own schedules. If you don’t file, you may receive nothing even if the debtor listed your debt.

Priority debts like recent taxes and domestic support obligations are paid first. Secured debts get whatever treatment the plan gives to the collateral. General unsecured creditors share what’s left, which can be a meaningful percentage or close to nothing depending on the debtor’s finances. Watch for the court’s deadline. Miss it, and you can lose your distribution.

Debts the Debtor Cannot Wipe Out

Even after a successful Chapter 13, several types of debt survive. If yours is one of these, you can resume collection once the case closes.

Child Support and Alimony

Domestic support obligations are entirely non-dischargeable.⁸ A Chapter 13 plan must provide for full payment, and the debtor cannot receive a discharge without certifying that support due through the certification date has been paid.³ A support claim holder can continue collection from non-estate property even during the case.

Recent Tax Debts

Priority tax claims must be paid in full through the plan. These include income taxes with a return due within three years before filing, taxes assessed within 240 days before filing, and taxes tied to returns that were never filed or filed late within two years of filing.⁹ Older tax debts may be dischargeable in some circumstances, but recent liabilities almost always survive. A federal tax lien recorded before the filing remains attached to the property it covers even after discharge.

Fraud-Related Debts

Debts obtained through false pretenses, misrepresentation, or actual fraud are not dischargeable. To block discharge, you typically have to file an adversary proceeding during the case and prove the fraud. Wait until the case closes without raising it, and you may lose the right to challenge dischargeability.

Willful and Malicious Injury

Debts arising from intentional harm to another person or their property are excepted from discharge. The standard is narrow: the debtor must have intended the act and either desired the harm or known it was substantially certain to occur. Ordinary negligence, gross negligence, and professional malpractice don’t meet that threshold. Under the Chapter 13 completion discharge, debts for willful or malicious injury that caused personal injury or death also remain enforceable.³

Injuries From Intoxicated Driving

If the debtor caused death or personal injury while operating a vehicle, boat, or aircraft while legally intoxicated, that debt cannot be discharged. It doesn’t matter whether the incident led to criminal charges. A civil judgment for injuries caused by drunk driving survives Chapter 13.

Your Statute of Limitations Doesn’t Expire While You Wait

A common worry: if the stay blocks you for three to five years, will the statute of limitations run out? Federal law addresses this directly. If your filing deadline hadn’t already expired before the bankruptcy petition, it won’t expire until the later of its original date or 30 days after the stay ends.¹⁰ You get at least a 30-day window after the stay lifts to file suit. The protection only works if your claim wasn’t already time-barred when the debtor filed. The bankruptcy doesn’t revive a claim you’d already let lapse.

What Your Rights Look Like When the Case Ends

A Chapter 13 case ends in one of two ways, and the outcome shapes what you can do next.

If the Debtor Completes the Plan

Once the debtor finishes plan payments and certifies domestic support obligations are current, the court grants a discharge. That discharge eliminates personal liability for most plan debts and creates a permanent injunction against collecting them. Any prior judgment you obtained on a discharged debt is voided to the extent it fixed personal liability.¹¹ Those debts are gone. The exceptions above — support, fraud, willful injury, drunk driving, criminal restitution, and certain taxes — survive, and you can pursue them after the case closes.

If the Case Is Dismissed

If the debtor misses plan payments, violates the plan, or the case is otherwise dismissed, the automatic stay evaporates. You regain every collection right you had before the bankruptcy. You can file suit, garnish wages, foreclose, and take any other action allowed by state and federal law. Dismissal resets the clock. No debts are discharged, liens voided during the case are reinstated, and property reverts to where it stood before the filing.¹²

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 362 – Automatic Stay
2
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In re Schwartz-Tallard
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 1328 – Discharge
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 US Code 1301 – Stay of Action Against Codebtor
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 US Code 361 – Adequate Protection
6
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure Rule 7001 – Types of Adversary Proceedings
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 US Code 1452 – Removal of Claims Related to Bankruptcy Cases
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 US Code 523 – Exceptions to Discharge
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 US Code 507 – Priorities
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 US Code 108 – Extension of Time
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 524 – Effect of Discharge
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 349 – Effect of Dismissal