The Atlanta Journal Constitution today is running a Business Feature that demonstrates precisely why we need a law requiring the execution of coporations that repeatedly visit ruin and destruction upon actual people in our country.
While I am not a lawyer, it doesn't take a Clarence Darrow to know that the corporate system in the United States has become a runaway savage that regularly visits depradation upon innocent consumers and faces little or not real punishment for its offenses.
More below the fold.
The AJC story concerns a couple who fell three months behind in their mortgage payment due to a family crisis. Faced with an unbending mortgage company in Countrywide Home Loans, John and Robin Atchley filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 13 reorganization, and began making regular payments through the court so they could keep their home.
Countrywide, however, took a dim view of the proceedings and proceeded to pile on apparently illegal fees, late charges, escrow requirements and additonal iterest charges. Further, the company made repeated cliams it did not recieve money the Atchley's had paid. The couple routinely showed receipts from Countrywide inidicating the money had been recieved, but that didn't stop Countrywide. They went to court repeatedly, seeking to foreclose on the home, ignoring the requirment to address their dispute through the bankruptcy court, and presenting false filings full of lies and falsehood.
Finally, unable to pay their legal bills,the Atchleys threw in the towell. They sold the home and paid $197,000 to Countrywide, when $180,000 was the amount they owed on the home. Countrywide again went to court, claiming they were owed even more money.
In three states, Countrywide has attempted to foreclose on homes that were paid off. In another state, they were denied a foreclosure but went ahead and changed the locks on houses. In at least one house, their agents had a family's belongings trucked to a garbage dumpt, despite the fact the forclosure was illegal.
Judges in several states have sanctioned Countrywide for the actions cited above. The Justice Department is investigating them. but curiously, the law firms that presented the false filings have not been disciplined or disbarred. The states have done little to reign in the company, any action arising from the federal investigation will probably result in just more fines, and the company will continue its contemptuous ways.
It is a story written over and over again. A corporation misbehaves, visits ruin upon real people, and is slapped on the wrist with a fine that can be paid out of petty cash. I've watch corporations bulldozing citizens for nearly a half century and never, ever have I seen a corporate execution. No matter how egregiuos the violations of the coporation, it is fined and left to go its way.
Indeed, corporations have morphed from a business alliance of shareholders into full blown 'persons' in every sense of the word, even to claiming constitutional rights. Yet they assume none of the responsibilities of 'persons'. Far from being responsible citizens, they cause upheavals and dislocations of whole communities; feed on unknowing consumers and visit destruction (both financial and physical) on consumers with impunity. Corporate regulation, such as it is, works only at the margins, making token efforts to reign in the most egregious practices with fines bad publicity.
I believe it is time for a statute requiring the execution of coporate 'persons' when their crimes become repeated, deliberate and predatory. Such corporations would immediately have their charter revoked. Since the business no longer existed, and all business licenses would be immediately invalidated. Their property and assets would be siezed to make compensation to their victims, and their stock should become worthless overnight. If Shareholders wish to continue to empower corporate management that engages in destructive practices, they deserve to lose their investment.
Further, the individual officers of the corporation should be held liable for the coporations actions. Once the corporation is dissolved, fine and imprison officers who participated in illegal activity.
We deal with violent and repeat criminals by imprisoning them, siezing their assets and denying their right to earn a living. Sometimes we even execute them. If coporations are going to play in our society, they need to have the same resonsibilities to abide by the law as the rest of us. And if they violate the law, their punishment should be equitable -- even to the point of execution.
Think of it: Parmaceutical companies may think twice before rushing questionable products to market; food companies may actually become careful about what goes into food; banks would become trustworthy again. Conservative love to argue that the death penalty discourages crime, and while that is questionable, a corporate death pentalty may actually make the denizens of Wall Street think twice before violating the law.