Some Bibles Are More Exemptable Than Others

I wonder how many Bankruptcy professors have posed a hypothetical about the exemption of a rare Bible worth lots of money? Well, a federal District Court in Illinois had to answer the question for real.

The Illinois person property exemption statute includes the debtor's Bible. A debtor in Southern Illinois asserted this exemption in a rare, first-edition Mormon Bible that she had acquired (for free) from her local library. Apparently, the library director had not been paying attention, as the 1830 Bible was appraised at at least $10,000.

Amusingly, the debtor's lawyer described this item of property on Schedule B as "old Mormon bible," further observing that "debtor has been told that there is a 100% exemption for bibles but valuable bibles may or may not be covered under such exemption" (!). The trustee accepted this open invitation and objected that the statute was never intended to apply to a Bible of such value, and the bankruptcy court agreed. The District Court reversed.  Responding to the standard law professor questions, the court noted that the word "necessary" in the statute modified only the first word, "wearing apparel," not the other words ("one does not need a bible, school books, or family pictures to survive"), and unlike other property in the statute, bibles are not subject to an explicit value restriction. QED.

Sometimes life does imitate fiction.

Holy Bible image courtesy of Shutterstock