The summary of it related to my question is that some college students (I think older than your typical students) were ordered to pay $6 million to another man that they had wrongly accused (by placing fliers on campus) of being a convicted child molester.
Regardless of that actual examples merits and outcome, if some court were to order me to pay $1 million or $10million, what happens to me if I have only about $50,000 in assets (condo, savings, pension)? Do I have to give an amount each year? All that I have for just now? If I do become rich, do I have to give everything over some basic living expenses?
Just wondering. Case I get sued. :smack: :rolleyes:
Can’t one declare bankruptcy and include the judgment as a debt? I seem to recall some discussion of that a million years ago while taking my bankruptcy for paralegals class.
Sometimes judgement-holders do not make any great effort to collect, because they know that the debtor just doesn’t have the financial resources to pay anywhere near the amount owed. But the judgement is carried for many years, just in case something happens that might make it collectable. Like the debtor suddenly winning the lottery. (There have been several cases of lottery winners who owed years of back child support, which the state grabbed from their winnings before paying them.)
I once worked for the State of Minnesota Department that operated the State Hospitals. Many of the patients, suffering from mental incompetence, drug addiction, mental illness, etc., were quite unlikely to ever earn enough to pay off the costs of their care. But the State maintained that debt, without much attempt to collect, for years – until they died. They had a full time employee who monitored obituaries & death reports, looking for patients who owed money. Then they would file a claim against the estate. Sometimes, there would be enough left from life insurance payments to go toward this debt. Apparently, this happened often enough to justify this worker’s salary.