Jailed Over an Old Debt

Dunno if this has been posted before, but I was struck by this article...maybe they're bringing back debtor's prisons? :(

Collection Tactics Lead Some Debtors To Jail

One Saturday night in July, Janelle Leslie was home with her three children near the town of Newport, Washington. She was worried about an unwanted visitor, so she asked a local sheriff's deputy to stop by.

Janelle Leslie: "After talking with him about some things, they had taken my drivers' license number and Social Security number down and ran a check. And it come back that I had a warrant."

A warrant for her arrest. All it said was she had failed to comply with a court order. She was completely befuddled.

(snip)

Janelle Leslie: "I had no idea of what I had been arrested for until it come across that it was Yakima Adjustment Service. And then I kind of clued in that it had been a collection bill." The bill was for 900 bucks.

More:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1704232/KPLU.Local.News/Collection.Tactics.Lead.Some.Debtors.To.Jail

she was arrested for not answering a summons to appear in court

this is what gets me-you get something in the mail or are personally served with legal documents and you ignore them?

I used to work in a law office and I'd say that the vast majority of the cases that we got judgments on were because the defendants ignored the law suit

and I have trouble believing that she never saw the bill for the MRI

I have trouble feeling bad for people like this

and didn't receive the summons.

If there's no proof of service, few judges will demand bail. Of course, if there's no proof of service, few judges will issue a warrant either. I suspect that there's more to this story than we're hearing.

it says that she was out of state and missed a court date

there would have been a court date set if the summons hadn't be served and the case was moving forward

I know in California, if you don't file the proof of service for the summons within a certain time frame after filing the suit, then the suit is tossed

If this is a new thing, then it's really just a way to create a 'hidden' debtors prison...

Here's the way that most of these pan out. First, a creditor sues you and wins a judgement. The creditor then sends you legal papers demanding that you document your sources of income, expenses, etc., so they can file for a wage garnishment. If you don't return the papers, the creditor files papers with the court, summoning you, and compelling you to divulge your income sources so they can attach your wages.

If you don't show up for that last bit, a warrant can be issued for your arrest. You've been summoned by a judge to provide information to the court, and you can't refuse to show up.

How common is this?

Most creditors don't have the legal staff needed to pursue these kinds of claims, and would have to hire a lawyer. That's a big expense for them. There's also some risk involved, because there's a decent chance that they won't get anything. If a creditor takes a debtor to court and the debtor has no income, or can convince the judge that the income is all needed for basic living expenses and can't be garnished, then the creditor walks away with nothing.

The odds of getting sued over an unpaid $20,000 credit card bill are pretty good. The odds of getting sued over an unpaid $200 phone bill are somewhere around nil.

Of course, when I was 18, I was evicted from my first apartment. My landlord sued me for $1800 to collect back rent and cover damages to the apartment. He won, and my wages were garnished. That was a pretty huge hit for an 18 year old college kid who was working part time for $6 an hour AND had to make a child support payment. The judge was pretty unsympathetic.

in many states (including Oregon before it became a "nanny state" and limited the amount of interest that could be charged) the single biggest sector- by far- utilizing the lower levels of the civil justice system were so called payday lenders.

In Oregon, they clogged both small claims and municipal courts with these suits- generally filing in pro per not only for judgments, but writs of execution and every sort of enforcement measure their minions could find (and frequently lie about having mailed to the correct address, much less personally served).

And they were of course not shy at all about scheduling judgment debtors' exams and using them for purposes outlined in the OP- or simply as threats to low income people.

Collection agencies with various medical debt assigned to them aren't all that shy about it either- though they're more likely to look for higher dollar return as you mention than churn it out in the courts with electronic forms filed and followed up by minimum wage employees.

NOT a criminal case. NO ONE should go to prison for an unpaid debt.

Should NEVER face 'pay or jail.'

'In 1833 the United States abolished Federal imprisonment for unpaid debts,<4> and most states outlawed the practice around the same time.<5><6> Before then, the use of debtor's prisons was widespread; signatories to the Declaration of Independence, James Wilson & Robert Morris were both later incarcerated, as were 2,000 New Yorkers annually by 1816. Henry Lee III, better known as Light-Horse Harry Lee, a Revolutionary War general, former governor of Virginia, and father of Robert E. Lee, was imprisoned for debt between 1808 and 1809.<7> Sometimes, imprisonment would result from less than sixty-cents worth of debt.<8>

It is still possible to be incarcerated for debt, though this may be unconstitutional unless the court finds that the debtor actually possesses the means to pay.<9><10>

The constitutions of the U.S. states of Tennessee and Oklahoma forbid civil imprisonment for debts.<11>'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors'_prison

'In 1970, the Supreme Court ruled that it violates equal protection to keep inmates in prison extra time because they are too poor to pay a fine or court costs. More recently, the court ruled that a state generally cannot revoke a defendant’s probation and imprison him for failing to pay a fine if he is unable to do so.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/opinion/06mon4.html?_r=1

Debtors' prison— again

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article991963.ece

She probably assumed that there was some kind of billing error or delay. That sort of thing happens all the time to Medicaid patients--so much that if we called about every single erroneous bill that we get, we'd spend hours on the phone every week just listening to the holding music. Often, we get billed because Medicaid is slow at paying--but eventually they DO pay, and the bill becomes trash. It doesn't surprise me that she didn't pay any special attention to that bill. She's probably gotten used to throwing them away.

I have no trouble at all feeling empathy for "people like this".

if you get a bill that you don't think you should have received, you follow up on it

you don't toss it

and I doubt that she only received one bill for the MRI

it's called personal responsibility

that they'd stoop to using right-wing buzzwords and defending de facto debtor's prisons on DU.

Sick and sad.

And further, on edit:

1) She was on Medicaid. Whether she knew about it or not, if she could afford a $900 bill, she wouldn't BE on Medicaid. Take your snotty little "personal responsibility" quip and shove it.

2) I am actually ashamed to see my state as your avatar.

3) Ignore.

and I couldn't pay it all at once

guess what-I made arrangements to pay it off over time

keep on making excuses for people too lazy to actually take responsibility for their actions

let's throw everyone inferior to you in jail.

some people can't be bothered to take responsibility for their actions

blame everyone else but themselves

She probably went out and charged up that MRI just for fun! I know I, personally, go in and get MRIs just for fun when I'm bored on a Saturday morning and there's nothing on Teevee to watch.

Think, people! It's called personal responsibility! Do NOT go out and charge up bills for MRIs simply because there's nothing else to do on your day off! Only truly sick people should get MRIs, and that's ONLY if they have the money to pay for them!

She wasn't arrested for not paying a bill. She was arrested because she ignored a court summons. You can ignore a collection call, but you can't ignore a court summons.

If you're summoned to court, you have to show up. Even if it's just to say, "I don't have the money". They can't put you in jail for that.

For White House advisors and Attorney Generals, not so much.

crank out either outright false proof's of service or game the system with some form of substituted service so that the debtor doesn't have actual notice of either the lawsuit (or judgment) itself, or the judgment debtors' hearing.

Unless and until there's comprehensive legislation to deal with this abuse, these cases will continue to mount.

This is a CIVIL matter and should be treated thusly. Not a criminal matter.

It's bullshit, and you know it, Xithras.

I kept getting the phone calls at 7AM in the morning by the time I got to the phone it had stopped and no message was left. When I finally ran and got the phone they asked for someone who didn't live at my home. I told them I never heard of the person and why were the calling. It was a collection agency. This person had lived at that address eight years ago. How did the get this phone number the person they wanted never had it we have had it for over 15 years. So they found the address and got a phone number listing for that address and starting hounding us with 7AM phone calls. Even after they were reported to Do Not Call they continued. That shouldn't be allowed I thought these people couldn't call except between 9 and 5 or 6 or something. I told her she better take our number off her companies telephone list or I would be the one to sue. I am waiting to see. No calls since.

They got, what, $182 billion out of the US Treasury to pay off chums of Geithner?

:hi:

As several have noted, the creditor gets a judgment (which may or may not be based upon a valid debt), usually because the alleged debtor received "service," whether the person actually got notice of the claim or not. In some cases, the creditor loses track of the debtor and gets permission to serve a notice to some old address by some means that seldom actually puts the debtor on notice of the claim.

The rule for sleazy collection firms is "get money, no matter how you get it." The lawyers who work with such collection firms typically have the same attitude. They don't really care if they get the right person, if the claim is legit, or if their conduct has been fair. They only care if they can find someone who is vulnerable and shake them down for money.

Once the judgment is entered, the rights of the debtor really go down the tubes. The service against the debtor is presumed good. The validity of the claim is presumed established. Those who enforce such claims do so with affidavits made by people who completely lack the personal knowledge required of such, as this current imbroglio over bad foreclosures has shown. It's that kind of approach which makes these low dollar collection practices all the more objectionable. The sad truth is the collectors don't care whether they have to lie to get a judgment. They swear to things they do not have personal knowledge of all the time.

It's debtors' imprisonment, dressed up as post judgment sanctions for failure to comply with post judgment discovery. It's anathema to the modern world, but small dollar courts crank these things out in large numbers every week, because the judges are toads for the business interests that pursue them.