75,764 Estimated Section 1328(f) Violations: No Court Is Screening for Them

Section 1328(f) of the Bankruptcy Code establishes mandatory waiting periods between bankruptcy discharges. A debtor who received a Chapter 7 discharge must wait four years before receiving a Chapter 13 discharge. A debtor who received a prior Chapter 13 discharge must wait two years. These restrictions were enacted as part of BAPCPA in 2005 to prevent abuse of the bankruptcy system.

Twenty-one years later, no federal bankruptcy court has implemented an automated system to screen for violations of these waiting periods. An Open Bankruptcy Project analysis of FJC Integrated Database records from fiscal years 2015 through 2024 estimates that 75,764 discharges may have been granted in violation of Section 1328(f) -- an average of more than 7,500 per year.

The 15 Districts with the Most Estimated Violations

The following districts have the highest estimated number of Section 1328(f) violations based on FJC data from fiscal years 2020 through 2024. Estimates are derived by identifying cases where a debtor received a discharge despite having a prior discharge within the statutory waiting period, based on available FJC filing and disposition records.

Georgia: Three Districts, 1,297 Estimated Violations

Georgia is the only state with three districts in the top 15. The Northern District (Atlanta) leads the state with 648 estimated violations, followed by the Southern District (Savannah) with 348 and the Middle District (Macon) with 301. Combined, Georgia's three districts account for an estimated 1,297 Section 1328(f) violations -- more than any other state.

Georgia's prominence on this list corresponds with its high repeat filing rates. The Northern District of Georgia has 40,911 Chapter 13 filings with a 48.2% prior filer rate. When nearly half of all filers have been through the process before, the probability of 1328(f) timing violations increases substantially -- particularly in the absence of automated screening.

Alabama: Two Districts, 867 Estimated Violations

Alabama places two districts in the top five: the Northern District (Birmingham) with 436 and the Middle District (Montgomery) with 431 estimated violations. The near-identical violation counts are striking given the volume difference -- the Northern District filed 27,429 cases to the Middle District's 21,637. On a per-case basis, the Middle District has a higher estimated violation rate.

The Screening Gap

The core problem is procedural: no bankruptcy court has an automated system to check whether a debtor's prior filing history triggers a Section 1328(f) bar to discharge. The current process relies on a patchwork of manual checks:

• Debtor's attorney: Expected to verify prior filing history, but the FJC data shows this check is frequently missed -- particularly in high-volume practices handling hundreds of cases simultaneously.
• Chapter 13 trustee: May review prior filing history during plan administration, but is not specifically tasked with 1328(f) compliance.
• Clerk's office: Processes discharge orders but does not independently verify eligibility against prior case records in other districts.
• U.S. Trustee: Monitors for abuse under Section 707(b) but has no systematic 1328(f) screening program.

The result is a system where the statutory protection exists on paper but is not reliably enforced in practice. Each estimated violation represents a discharge that may have been granted to a debtor who was not legally eligible to receive one -- potentially at the expense of creditors who would otherwise have been entitled to continued payment.

The Only Free Screening Tool

In response to the absence of court-level screening, the Open Bankruptcy Project built and released a free, public Section 1328(f) discharge eligibility screener in early 2026. The tool runs entirely in the browser using client-side processing -- no personal information is transmitted or stored. It checks a debtor's prior filing dates and case types against the statutory waiting periods and returns a clear eligibility determination.

The screener has been used by debtors, attorneys, and legal aid organizations across the country. Additional resources are available at section1328.org and dischargebar.org.

What a Violation Means

A discharge granted in violation of Section 1328(f) is voidable. If discovered, it can be revoked under Section 1328(e), potentially years after the case was closed. For debtors, this means the debts they believed were discharged may be reinstated. For creditors, it means they may have been denied payments they were legally owed. For the courts, each violation represents a case that consumed judicial resources to process a legally defective outcome.

The 75,764 estimated violations represent a decade of accumulated screening failures. Whether the number reflects attorney negligence, systemic process gaps, or the inherent difficulty of manual cross-district record checks, the scale of the problem underscores the need for automated solutions.

Related: Where Chapter 13 Fails: The 15 Worst Districts | 1 in 3 Chapter 13 Filers Has Filed Before