Very well stated, @Northern_Piper As a lawyer, I did collections for some years. I hated it, but I learned it. And you summed it up nicely.
Exactly, in our rule-of-law society, once the creditors have that decision, they can take it to the banks and other financial institutions and get those assets. They may need some sort of specific writ or something, but I imagine that would be done as part of the decision.
Similarly if it’s a physical asset, the court can and will send the cops to seize it by force, and/or haul people in for resisting said seizure.
That’s kind of the point- the vast majority of court decisions come with the weight of the state behind them to enforce them (small claims court may not), and you can’t just decide not to pay up, or go to jail or whatever.
This will depend on the enforcement law of the particular jurisdiction, but cops aren’t normally involved in enforcing civil judgments. That’s the job of court officials, like marshals, or hired bailiffs. The cops may get called in if there is indication that violence may erupt if a judgment is being enforced, but that’s not enforcing the judgment; they’re there to keep the peace as officials authorised by the court order do their job of enforcing it.
A writ of enforcement is necessary. That’s easy enough to get, as long as you have a judgment. In my jurisdiction, you can get a writ at the same time that you file a judgment with the court.
Nitpick: It’s up to the winning litigant (who now has the judgment and the writ) to send in a civil enforcement agency to seize assets. The court won’t. A civil enforcement agency is a private enterprise, but one who understands the court documents and what they mean. Think, “Repo Men,” and you’ve got the idea.
Thanks, Spoons.
It’s a fair question to ask, considering how many thousands of law suits that have been filed against Trump over the years, and how little effect they’ve had on him.
It’s also a fair question to ask in a world where Trump Org can be facing charges in Florida under consumer protection laws, Trump Org makes a $25,000 campaign donation to the Attorney General of Florida, and the charges go away.
The bottom line here, however, is that enforcement is done by a combination of the banks, their lawyers, and the courts, which are not subject to the kind of wheeling and dealing that Trump is good at. It can take time to go through the courts, since Trump Org has the due process right to oppose the application, but the big banks have more resources than most of the litigants Trump has faced in court. If they persist in their applications, and if the court does grant the order a bank is seeking, enforcement of that order is straightforward, through the state laws and agencies, like registry agencies.
Even at that, it eventually comes down to the fact that your court decision holds the force of the State; in other words, if they resist the civil enforcement agency, they can be sued some more, etc… eventually resulting in criminal charges, etc…
In other words, you can’t just ignore a court decision like that because you’re Donald Trump and you choose not to. The court/state will make you pay up eventually one way or another.
Any idea on the magnitude of the loans that might be called in? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? Could he simply send out an emergency appeal to his base to contribute to paying off his debts?
Suppose the company just says screw it, we’re bankrupt. Do they then just have to liquidate all their assets and the rest of the debt is just noncollectable?
True, though I’m wondering why you mentioned the creditor suing anybody if the debtor resists the civil enforcement agency. The bailiffs who are enforcing the order have the order and the writ, and to defy those, would make the debtor in contempt of court. All the creditor has to do is to tell the court such, usually through an application in chambers, supported by affidavit evidence from the bailiffs, and the court will impose additional sanctions on the debtor.
At any rate, you are correct: Donald Trump cannot say “Piss off” to a creditor who has a judgment and a writ, just because Trump doesn’t feel like paying.
In looking at past litigation by contractors alleging Trump has stiffed them, which don’t appear to have had much effect on him, you have to consider the difference between a secured creditor and an unsecured creditor.
A secured creditor, like a bank or other lender, has a security interest in one of the assets of the debtor. The debtor has given that security (often called “collateral” in the movies) in exchange for getting the loan. The security can be in the form of a mortgage, which gives the creditor a right in a building, or an assignment of book debts, which gives the creditor a right to the income stream of the debtor, or other imaginative securities.
If you have a security interest like that, you’re ahead of everyone else in the queue. Nobody else can touch the property that is covered by the security, and you’re guaranteed to get it, if you can show the debtor is in default.
But a general litigant, like a contractor who says he’s been stiffed on a deal, isn’t a secured creditor. They’re an unsecured creditor, and have much less rights. They’re just one of many potentially unsecured creditors, and they can’t enforce a court order against the property that is covered by a security interest. They have to find some unsecured property to go after to enforce the court order against. And with something as weirdly structured as Trump Org, with multiple, inter-locking corporations, that can be a difficult task in itself. That would be my guess, purely as a foreign outsider, why Trump has been so successful in not being touched by the multiple lawsuits that have been brought against Trump Org over the years.
Good point, and I will add this: not all property purportedly owned by an organization, is actually owned by that organization.
I once pursued an enforcement action where the creditor couldn’t believe that we could not move against the debtor’s trucks, combines, tractors, and other farm equipment. Why? Because the debtor didn’t own them. They were leased. They were actually the property of a downtown Toronto holding company, and as such, could not be touched.
In other words, you can only go after what the debtor owns, but not what the debtor leases. Add in multiple lessors and lessees, as many corporations which own other corporations might have, and it becomes, as Opus the penguin would say, “all higgledy-piggledy.”
Which of course leads to the question: Why is the Trump Org structured in such a confusing way, with all those different interlocking corporations and trusts? The answer is left to the speculation of the reader…
You reallyreallyreally don’t??
Give me a break. 
In view of the facts that I know you know exactly what I think of DJT since you’ve read my thousands of posts over the last 5+ years, and I kind of like you, and I think you meant that rhetorically and not literally the way it sounded, I’ll let this slide.
Thank you.
I don’t know that Donald ever tells his creditors to “piss off” – he just refuses to acknowledge their existence. If he doesn’t like reality, he ignores it, and so far, he’s gotten away with it.
You know how when you go after a cockroach, if you’re fast and not barefoot you can smash them? But usually they are so quick they slip through a crack and disappear? I want to see a great big wingtip come down on Donald and smash him into wiggling pieces. Or failing that, I want to see him in handcuffs. I don’t think either thing will ever happen. He isn’t a god-- he’s a cockroach.
ETA:
Many. many cracks to slip through…
I don’t know, but you could check out those articles that the failing NYT put out last fall, that really investigated Trump’s finances.
Any liquidation would be supervised by the bankruptcy courts. But yes, if the debts exceed the assets, which is one of the traditional factors triggering bankruptcy, then some of the debts will be uncollectable. Normally secured creditors get paid via their security, as outlined earlier, and the unsecured creditors fight for the rest of the corpse assets. The usual phrase when the dust settles is “I only got ## cents on the dollar”, meaning that they didn’t get fully compensated for their claim.
In case the Trump Org ever gets liquidated and creditors are dealt with, would all the NDAs then be void, as any breach of them could not harm the organisation anymore?
No idea.
Well, if I had to speculate, I’d say this: the Trump Org is as confusing as it is, simply because it confuses those who might advance a claim against it. If you’re a contractor who has a valid claim, do you go against Donald Trump himself (who is protected by the corporate veil), or the Trump Org, or ABC Inc (which the Trump Org owns but the Trump Org is protected by the corporate veil), or ABC’s ownership in DEF Inc? I could go on, but you get the idea. Which of these Trump operations did you actually work for? Do you know?
Ding-ding-ding! I think we have a winner!
This is largely true, particularly when it comes to creditors. However, he was forced to pay a $25M settlement in the Trump University case(s), and the Trump Foundation was successfully dissolved (notably by the NY AG’s office). In the latter case, he was forced to pay $2M in damages and the foundation’s remaining money was distributed to charities.
While he has skated on most things in his miserable life, he is demonstrably not untouchable, and he can be forced to pay things off. We shall have to wait and see what happens in this case.
About these accelerator clauses, do they kick simply on indictment? Isn’t that something like presumption of guilt.
Another point. You have the court order and all and walk in to the bank asking for the money, but before they give it out, Trump sues the bank, giving some BS reason why the bank shouldn’t comply. The suit is frivolous, but it delays things and then there will be another suit. This can go on nearly forever, especially given how clogged the courts are.