Sound vaguely familiar to anyone? That’s the General Question here. That’s the only General Question here. Let’s see if we can answer it, huh?
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Whether or not its legally binding in this situation is actually irrelevant. I’ve been on the show as a defendant, and its doesn’t matter if you lose or not. The show pays for the award. Exactly 0 comes out of your pocket. And tarpal is partially correct, before you go on the producers come in and try and pump you up into acting the way you see most of the people acting. They encourage you to just cut in any time you want, to interrupt the other person, to yell, to shout, etc etc. But you aren’t required to do that, and you still get your money/award if you just walk in and sit there like a lump. You do sign an agreement before hand dismissing the original complaint, so in that sense its binding.
As for actors, the people that I was taping with were all real. I would imagine that everyone is real, since they draw from small claims cases all across the country, and there are a LOT of cases being heard daily. You could tape 50 of these shows a day and still have plenty of cases left over to pick from. And if you think they aren’t real, you haven’t gone down to your local small claims court lately. You get all the drama with none of the commercials.
Whether or not its legally binding in this situation is actually irrelevant. I’ve been on the show as a defendant, and its doesn’t matter if you lose or not. The show pays for the award. Exactly 0 comes out of your pocket. And tarpal is partially correct, before you go on the producers come in and try and pump you up into acting the way you see most of the people acting. They encourage you to just cut in any time you want, to interrupt the other person, to yell, to shout, etc etc. But you aren’t required to do that, and you still get your money/award if you just walk in and sit there like a lump. You do sign an agreement before hand dismissing the original complaint, so in that sense its binding.
As for actors, the people that I was taping with were all real. I would imagine that everyone is real, since they draw from small claims cases all across the country, and there are a LOT of cases being heard daily. You could tape 50 of these shows a day and still have plenty of cases left over to pick from. And if you think they aren’t real, you haven’t gone down to your local small claims court lately. You get all the drama with none of the commercials.
Well, it was a nice attempt at redirecting back to the OP bibliophage…
weeds, in my opinion, the judge has to follow the laws from the state the plaintiff is from. It’s not always
the judge’s state. Although we could look up the laws for you, we would need to know the plaintiff’s state
of residence.
Most of these judge shows have web sites you can check for more info, e.g. judyjudy.com Etc.
Although, Jerry Springer did graduate from Northwestern with a degree in law in 1968 and then served as an aide on the Kennedy election campaign. He then went to work for a law firm and was active in lobbying to pass the 26th amendment, even testifying before congress. In 1971, he was elected to the Cincinnati city council, where he served 5 terms, before being elected mayor of Cincinnati in 1977. So, even Jerry Springer isn’t exactly Jerry Springer…
Actually, it seems to me that I’ve heard Judge Judy say that she’s not obligated to follow the laws of any particular state. I also recall Judge Wapner making numerous references to California law. Unfortunately, those are the only two TV judge shows I kinow with any degree of depth.
And lest it seem like I’m ignoring the OP: I don’t know what the requirement is to make a debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. I seem to recall from school that only a contract entered into during the pendency of bankruptcy proceedings may include such a clause, but that’s years-ago stuff that could be wrong or incomplete.
- Rick
Kudos to you, Captain Amazing! I did not know that, and am abashed at the invidious assumption I made!
Thanks for a great piece of info.
- Rick
Nanook if you could check your contract with the show and tell me if it included the punitive award in the total damages? I was thinking Judge Joe made a big thing of limiting the actual damages and increasing the punitive damages. I was hoping the appearance money covered only actual damages and he was stuck forever for the punitive.
I thank everyone for their responses
Judge Marilyn Millian (I tihnk that’s how you spell her name) is the current judge on People’s Court, and she seems to go out of her way to explain the legal reasons behind her decision, as well as cites the appropriate state laws. (i.e. the laws regarding leashed dogs in New York and in a similiar case, California)
I don’t watch Judge Judy on a daily basis, but I think the vast, vast majority of her cases are from California.
There is a website:
http://www.judgejoebrown.com/home/default.asp
I don’t think I have it anymore, it was several years ago. But they made it a point before I went on and after to assure me that no matter what the outcome was I wouldn’t have to pay even a dime out of my own pocket. They even handled travel expenses. I was on the People’s Court with Marilyn, which is taped in NY. This made it easy for me, since all they had to do was send out a car to drive me back and forth. The plantiff was an ex-gf that lived in California, and from what I understand they flew her in at their expense and put her up in a hotel.
Is Marilyn as cool IRL as she is on TV? (I really love that woman…)
Well, you don’t actually talk to her outside of the time spent in the courtroom, but she seemed very cool from that. Which reminds me of the one big thing I disliked about the show(which I’m sure will surprise no one), which is the editing. My segment took about 45 minutes to tape, and when it was actually broadcast they had edited it down to like 10-15 minutes. Not only that, but they really have total control over the way the plantiff and defendant end up looking. After my mom watched it, she turned to me and said “You really look like a nasty individual on there”. Of course, she had been somewhat a part of the whole incident that led up to me being sued, so she knew what they had shown was incorrect.