January 27th, 2009 by Reed Allmand 
In the case White v. Educational Credit Management Corp., et al. in Texas a debtor who suffers from autoimmune hepatitis was denied a bankruptcy discharge of her student loans because the bankruptcy court determined that her illness was present when she applied for the loans and attended college.
This case is interesting because the debtor was diagnosed with her disease in 1999; but first took out loans in 2001(after her diagnosis); but by December 2007 the debtor had a stroke and was hospitalized. Although she was released and cleared to return to work when the debtor filed for bankruptcy she was unemployed and had lost her home in foreclosure. Despite these circumstances the bankruptcy court ruled that she her illness would not prevent her from working in the future, therefore her student loans would not be discharged. The court most importantly stated that because the illness existed before she took out the loan; it could not be considered an "additional circumstance."
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
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