What does this legal term mean?

Factual Questions
1

I hope this if the correct forum, if not I hope someone will kindly move it for me.

Let me start by saying that I am not asking for legal advice, just a legal definition.:wink:

Here’s the background story (you knew there’s be one, right?). I have a friend, although I use the term loosely and am reconsidering it altogether in light of her recent stupid actions…we will call her Debtress McStupidhead (not her real name ;)) and she is married, but currently separated from her husband, Debtor McStupidhead (also not his real name). No papers have been filed, no divorce is in process, she just moved out. Well, when she moved out, she quit paying on all of their joint debts (including the lease of their house) and apparently he did too because they were summoned to court recently due to their landlord (property management company, not an individual) filing a “forcible detainer” action against them seeking back rent, damages and eviction from their house.

Debtress McStupidhead decided that it was all her husband’s responsibility since she moved out already and she failed to show up for court or file any kind of answer. Debtor McStupidhead showed up and “confessed judgment”.

This is the term that I want help defining, “confessed judgment”. I believe it means he showed up said, “Yup, they are right I owe that and I won’t fight a judgment being entered against me.” However Debtress McStupidhead disagrees.

She was not concerned enough to show up for court but was concerned enough to look up the case on the district court’s website to see the outcome. It says: (some details obviously edited)

So I read this and see a judgment against two people, one of whom admits he owes it and one whom received a default judgment because she was too stupid to show up. Debtress McStupidhead reads it differently though, she believes the amount of judgment against her isn’t. In other words she believes the judge would have charged that money (and restitution of premises) to her, but since she moved out already and her husband “confessed judgment” it means that she is now entirely off the hook and that the entire judgment is against him because he confessed to it. I guess she thinks that means he accepted her share as well.

I am pretty confident that I am reading it more correctly than she, but told her I would check around to make sure. :wink: I am encouraging her to clean up this mess, but she thinks she is golden right now…it’s a bad trait amongst the McStupidheads it seems. :wink:

2

The term phrase “confession of judgment” does have a technical meaning. You can look it up, but it won’t answer your question about who owes the landlord. You might get more out of looking up “joint and several liability”–I’m not at all saying that that is the answer to your question, just that you’ll be looking at a more relevant area of law.

3

Yeah I looked it up already and it has two meanings, one of which makes me correct in the above scenario.

Who owed the landlord (including joint and several liability which should be clearly defined in the lease itself) at this point is irrelevant now that it is a judgment, unless it is paid right away (HA!) it will be garnished and then she can cry all day long about how he should have paid it, or he can whine about she should have…

Really I just wanted confirmation that the judgment is indeed against both of them, because she thinks just because he “confessed judgment” that negates the first sentence “judgment for PLT against HER” and that just can’t be right, can it?

4

If she signed the lease, she’s on the hook, no matter if she lives in the leased house or not. It’s a contract. She was a named defendant in a lawsuit (meaning her name was probably on the lease) and she should have responded to the summons. Since she did not, the court was completely within its power to award the plaintiff a default judgment against her. Courts really hate when a defendant ignores a summons.

Therefore she owes all of the amount awarded against her. The entry in the OP does not say what the husband confessed judgment to (the amount he admitted owing), but the entry is explicit in the amount she is ordered to pay to the plaintiff. The full order, which should have been mailed to her, would have all the details. Maybe they can come to an agreement with the landlord and each pay part, or maybe she can live with a judgment against her on her credit record. That’s her call. Depending on the state laws, judgments may expire or not, and wage garnishment may or may not be an option. She may hire a lawyer and try to get the default judgment voided, but that’s difficult to do and there’s no guaranty she’d win that one.

Bottom line: What “confession of judgment” means doesn’t really matter. What matters is that your friend has a very real judgment against her in a specific amount.

Real bottom line: Never, never, never, *never *ignore a summons.

I am a lawyer, but I am not your or anyone else’s lawyer. I am probably not licensed to practice in your state, whatever that is. This is not legal advice - just information on an anonymous message board and I could be lying anyway. Conduct yourself accordingly.

5

IANAL… Yep, joint and severally. Each and everyone owes the entire debt until it is collected in its entirety somehow from somebody.

Unless the judge explicilty said otherwise, the whole amount can be taken from wherever they can find it - both Mr. and Mrs. McS one at a time or simultaneously. Lesse, you’re a debt collection agency and both these people are earning money… Why would you not garnishee both of them? Once they get the garnish order, she can yell and scream all she wants for all the good it does her.

This is why patients sue the nurse, the doctor, the hospital and the medical supply company. The docotr may be 95% responsible and the hospital 5% for not watching him, but guess which one has $10M and would end up paying most of the amount?

“Joint and severally” means everyone is responsible for the whole amount until its paid in full. Once she assumed the debt - signed the lease - she basically said she’d pay any money owing regardless of what Mr. McS did. Having “earned” that debt, and taking no steps to remove herself from that situation, why would she expect that the judge would do the work for her, screw over the landlord, and absolve her from a legitimate debt? The landlord wanted both on the lease for just this reason - easier to collect from. You can’t get out from under this debt without the consent of the other side in the contract. You can’t unilaterally transfer a debt. And finally, the judge won’t do it for you. If you owe, you owe unless the loan-holder forgives.

I suspect the key item here is - what did the lease say about cancelling your obligation (going forward) and did she take any of those steps? Sounds like no.

As for Mr. McS, sounds like he is less McS than her. First, instead of bluster and complaint, it sounds like he just said “yes, I owe what they say.” why fight the obvious in court? Second, if the rent was high enough that one income could not cover it, sounds like he took the dubiously ethical but strategically logical step of ceasing all payment instead of throwing good money after bad. Or, he just decided to run up the debt as high as possible to screw her over too - nasty but smarter than her.

6

This is correct. She was apparently served with papers, and she chose not to show up. In such a circumstance, the judge basically says, well, she could be here if she wanted to, but since she didn’t show up, then I can take for true what the plaintiff says about her.

So your friend currently has a judgment against her. What she’s apparently confused about is the fact that there also appears to be a judgment against her husband too (albeit a different type of judgment, but a judgment nonetheless). Tell her it’s like separate checks at a restaurant. The fact that her husband apparently agreed to pay his doesn’t change the fact that she skipped out on her bill.

7

Thanks, that is exactly how I will explain it to her, if she is still speaking to me about after I called them the McStupidheads on a public forum. :wink:

Thanks everyone who responded. That is pretty much what I thought, but listening her her (non)logic for a while really did make me question what I thought I knew. I don’t understand why anyone would ignore a summons (and this is neither the first one she ignored nor the first judgment against her for non-payment of a debt) then ignore judgments and collections- she was so happy a few weeks ago telling me that the last judgment against her (credit card related) was finally paid off and that her pay checks were no longer being garnished for it. :rolleyes: I just couldn’t live that way at all, and since I also value integrity in my friendships as well I am wondering if I should continue this one in light of these antics.