A party who has standing to be heard by the court in a matter to be decided in the bankruptcy case. The debtor, U.S. trustee or bankruptcy administrator, case trustee, and creditors are parties in interest for most matters.
The legislature occasionally skips outline levels.
For example:
(3) A person may apply [...]
(4)(a) A person petitioning for relief [...]
In this example, (3), (4),
and (4)(a) are all outline levels, but
(4) was
omitted by its authors. It's only implied. This presents an
interesting challenge when laying out the text. We've
decided to display a blank section with this note, in order
to aide readability.