In re Dewey, (Bkrtcy.W.D.Tenn.)

Discharge - Unemployed Chapter 7 debtor suffering from bipolar disorder was not entitled to undue hardship discharge of student loans.

An unemployed Chapter 7 debtor whose bipolar disorder allegedly prevented from working in his former occupation as psychiatrist, and whose monthly income, consisting entirely of contributions from relatives, was nearly $1,000 less than his scheduled monthly expenses, failed to satisfy even the first prong of the Brunner "undue hardship" test for the dischargeability of his student loan debt. There was a complete lack of evidence either that the debtor had minimized his expenses, given that he had continued to pay to maintain his psychiatric license despite his alleged inability to practice psychiatry, and that his bipolar disorder, from which the debtor had suffered since high school, and which had not prevented him from graduating from an Ivy league school, completing his medical studies or fulfilling his psychiatric residency, was such as to prevent him from obtaining any employment that would permit him to make payments on his student loans.