In re Hundley

The question raised by this adversary proceeding in the bankruptcy court is whether a non-debtor spouse is entitled to a portion of a prepetition tax refund, where the parties filed a joint return and the non-debtor spouse earned no income for the tax year for which the return was filed. Because a debtor’s interest in property is defined by state law, Butner v. United States, 440 U.S. 48, 54-55 (1979), we look to the law of Massachusetts in order to determine the respective interests of spouses in their jointly-filed tax refund. The courts of the Commonwealth have not addressed this question. While several state statutes touch on the issue indirectly by describing joint property interests and the property rights of married individuals, none of these statutes tells us how Massachusetts would treat the income tax refund in this case. In the absence of any controlling statutes or precedents from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”), we conclude that we should certify the question to the Court, pursuant to its Rule 1:03. See In re Engage, Inc., 544 F.3d 50, 51 (1st Cir. 2008).

I.