One judge, Noach Dear, has been
dismissing many debt collection agency lawsuits.
He was rated not qualified when he ran
for judge; he was involved with dubious schemes, but got elected anyway.
The Village Voice Reporter sat on the cases and documents some of the problems in the
Debt Collection is a major issue and debt collection companies are in the news.
They used to work for the company that owned the debts. And they got a
commission on what they collected with the rest going back to the person
to whom the debt was owed. Now, they just buy from the company all the
debt which hasn't been paid in many years for pennies on the dollars.
After two years, only 22.8 percent of debt is ever collected.
They are also more aggressive about suing the person whom they believe owes
the money. Sometimes, they get the person wrong, or sue at the wrong
address. But often the person who is sued or who has their wages garnished,
settles just to make the case go away. The lawyers often make an affidavit
that they are personally aware of certain facts.
Each attorney has filed so many of such cases that such assertions are dubious,
at best.
One judge, Noach Dear, has been
dismissing many of these cases. He was rated not qualified when he ran
for judge; he was involved with dubious schemes, but got elected anyway.
Hospitals suing patients raises many issues. They are caught between two laws.
They are only allowed to write off patients' debts under federal law
when clearly uncollectible. On the other hand, they may find their non-profit
status in jeopardy for being too agressive in collecting payment from the
poor.
-
Davino, Margaret J. "Outside Counsel. The Class Action Against Hospitals
for Collecting Payment" New York Law Journal, September Ninth
2004, Page Four
-
Post, Leonard, "Hospitals Hit with Plague of Lawsuits: Unfair Billing Practices
Alleged Against Non-profits, National Law Journal, July 19, 2004, Page one
-
Laguarda, Lucette, "Hospitals Try Extreme Measures to Collect Their
Overdue Debts" Wall Street Journal Eastern Edition
October 23th 2004, Volume 242, No 86, Page A1
A student team of Yingru Chan, Zaw Thant
and Robert Zimmerman, here at Western Illinois University,
developed systems to manage the garnishment process. This
is often associated with employer's, garnishing wages. However, one can
garnish any source of income or a bank account. If A has a judgment against
B, and C owes money to B, then A can go after C in a garnishment procedure.
Managing a garnishment is complex. In Arizona Law, there are priority
rules for pending garnishments, and employers or the party C
have to determine which one to pay. Then garnishments that have no payments
for two consecutive pay periods because of other garnishments disappear and
need to be refiled.
And the garnisher has to send many forms to apprise the garnishee of how close
they are to paying off their debt.
Parsley, this proof of concept system, handles all these arrangements.
International Journal of Law and Information Technology
published this in Volume 14, Number Two, "Parsley: Towards an Integratedf
System to Handle Garnishment for Garnishees, Judgment Debtors,
Judgments Creditors, and the Courts", 242-249