Chapter 13 Report Card: Northern District of Alabama
Summary
The Northern District of Alabama had 122,368 Chapter 13 filings between fiscal years 2008 and 2024. Of these, 50,820 (41.5%) were prior filers. Among closed cases, 39.4% received a discharge and 60.6% were dismissed. 12,592 prior filers received a discharge — cases where §1328(f) eligibility screening should have occurred but cannot be verified from public data.
How This Compares
The prior-filer discharge rate in the AL-Northern district is 2.9 percentage points above the national average.
| Metric | AL-Northern | National Avg | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prior filer rate | 41.5% | 33.2% | +8.3pp |
| Discharge rate (closed cases) | 39.4% | 41.7% | -2.3pp |
| Dismissal rate (closed cases) | 60.6% | 58.3% | +2.3pp |
| Prior-filer discharge rate | 30.3% | 27.3% | +2.9pp |
Prior-Filer Discharge Rate vs. National Average
Yearly Breakdown
| FY | Filed | Prior Filers | Prior % | Discharged | Disch. Rate | Prior Disch. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 8,874 | 3,320 | 37.4% | 2,836 | 36.9% | 782 |
| 2009 | 10,197 | 3,830 | 37.6% | 3,833 | 43.1% | 1,085 |
| 2010 | 9,525 | 3,830 | 40.2% | 3,740 | 44.3% | 1,201 |
| 2011 | 9,067 | 3,517 | 38.8% | 3,390 | 42.3% | 1,065 |
| 2012 | 8,188 | 3,330 | 40.7% | 2,947 | 41.0% | 953 |
| 2013 | 7,823 | 3,663 | 46.8% | 2,806 | 41.0% | 1,060 |
| 2014 | 6,424 | 3,122 | 48.6% | 2,291 | 40.7% | 882 |
| 2015 | 6,437 | 3,056 | 47.5% | 2,283 | 40.3% | 822 |
| 2016 | 6,865 | 3,016 | 43.9% | 2,602 | 42.7% | 921 |
| 2017 | 7,263 | 3,046 | 41.9% | 2,758 | 42.8% | 957 |
| 2018 | 6,958 | 2,849 | 40.9% | 2,771 | 44.7% | 936 |
| 2019 | 7,318 | 2,969 | 40.6% | 2,903 | 45.4% | 913 |
| 2020 | 5,288 | 2,167 | 41.0% | 1,872 | 44.5% | 602 |
| 2021 | 3,966 | 1,783 | 45.0% | 501 | 22.1% | 203 |
| 2022 | 5,377 | 2,238 | 41.6% | 365 | 14.3% | 137 |
| 2023 | 6,093 | 2,404 | 39.5% | 120 | 5.2% | 51 |
| 2024 | 6,705 | 2,680 | 40.0% | 54 | 3.0% | 22 |
What This Means
Under 11 U.S.C. § 1328(f), a debtor who received a Chapter 13 discharge may not receive another Chapter 13 discharge if the second case was filed within two years of the first filing date. A debtor who received a Chapter 7 discharge may not receive a Chapter 13 discharge if the Chapter 13 case was filed within four years of the Chapter 7 filing date.
The FJC Integrated Database records whether a debtor had a prior bankruptcy filing (PRFILE field) but does not record whether the court verified §1328(f) eligibility before granting discharge. This means 12,592 discharges were granted to prior filers in this district without any publicly verifiable record of statutory eligibility screening.
Not every prior-filer discharge is necessarily improper. Many prior filers are outside the statutory time bars and fully eligible. But absent a verifiable screening mechanism, the number of potentially ineligible discharges in this district — and nationwide — is unknown.
Estimated Unscreened Cases
Of 12,592 prior-filer discharges in the Northern District of Alabama, zero have a publicly verifiable §1328(f) eligibility determination in the FJC IDB. This is not unique to this district — no district records this data. The question is whether the screening happened and simply was not recorded, or whether it did not happen at all.
How to Cite
1328f.org, “Chapter 13 Report Card: Northern District of Alabama,” 1328f.org District Data Series (2026), https://1328f.org/districts/aln/. Data: FJC Integrated Database, FY 2008–2024.
Not Legal Advice
This page presents statistical data from the Federal Judicial Center Integrated Database. It does not constitute legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and should not be relied upon as a substitute for consultation with a licensed attorney. The data reflects case-level administrative records and may contain coding errors or omissions. §1328(f) eligibility determinations require case-specific legal analysis that cannot be performed from aggregate data.