Over in this threadabout HOA rules, a case about a homeowner that let his yard go bad because he couldn’t afford the maintenance was ordered to jail by the judge in the case for being “in contempt” of failing to comply with the order to replace his sod. The homeowner claimed a financial hardship for not being able to afford to replace the sod. The case is clearly a civil case between the HOA and the homeowner. I thought that debtor imprisonment was unconstitutional.
What’s the dope on judges contempt powers, especially regarding civil cases involving financial matters.
Here’s a long newspaper storythat explains it pretty well. Briefly:
Creditor tries to collect from debtor. Debtor can’t/won’t/doesn’t pay.
Creditor sues debtor for payment in civil court.
Judge finds for creditor, orders debtor to pay.
Debtor can’t/won’t/doesn’t pay and judge orders debtor to jail. Or, debtor doesn’t show up for trial and judge issues an arrest warrant.
Now, there are a lot of nuances in this bare bones description. In some cases, the debtor is arrested and sits in jail before the trial, because he can’t post bail. In some cases, the court won’t jail for contempt if the debtor shows evidence that the debtor can’t pay, rather than won’t pay.
You can’t actually be thrown in jail for owing someone money. That’s what bankruptcy is for – a legal procedure to show the court (and your creditors) that you actually can not pay your debts. But, if the judge orders you to pay, and you don’t, that’s contempt.
It appears from the story what they are talking about is an information subpoena. I recall this from years ago when I did collections. It was virtually never used at the time. But unlike other creditor threats, this is a SUBPOENA. YOU MUST ANSWER IT.
It’s just like any other subpoena if you don’t answer it you’re in contempt of court.
If you get one you have to produce to the court evidence of why you can’t pay. If you can’t pay then the judge let’s you go. If you never show up to answer it, then you’re in contempt, the same as any other subpoena.
This is why credit websites always say NEVER ignore a court summons for a judgement. You always show up. You simply say “Look I can’t pay.” The judge then asks why and if he agrees you can’t pay, the other side gets it’s judgement against you but there’s nothing they can do about it.
This is why as soon as you can’t pay your bills you remove all the money out of any bank account you can BEFORE you default.
You can even be proactive, there are many letters on the Internet which you can proactively send to your creditors saying “Look I intend to pay but right now I can’t. I am out of work and am on food stamps.” (or whatever) It doesn’t stop the collection calls or whatever but it does provide you with legal back up.
A little bit of that court docket can be retrieved online, and it seems to show that the man never responded to the court summons. It sounds like he’d presented a hardship case to the HOA, but nothing to the court. A couple of other financial cases show up against him too, and it looks like he didn’t file anything in those cases either. I’m a bit surprised that the court took it as far as it did, but he just didn’t give the judge anything to work with in terms of finding hardship or showing mercy in some way.
IIRC, in cases like “refusal to testify”, the judge has been known to toss someone in jail until they do. Wasn’t there a reporter in some case a few years ago (The Wilson-Plame case comes to mind?) who did several months in jail for refusing to name sources.
Similarly, the judge can cite you for refusing subpoenas and for inappropriate conduct in court. If it’s simply a matter of not sodding your ground, I would suspect the actual judgement at worst would be something like ordering you to pay a landscape company or putting a lien against your land for the cost of the work, or eventually allowing the debt to create an opportunity to seize and auction your house. This is the same as most towns with bylaw infractions, they do the work, add it to your bill, and if you don’t payeventually take your house and sell it.
The moral of the story is “don’t piss off a judge”.