Rewinding a bit, when I went for my hearing though I was talking with my attorney and the magistrate that was handling the case. She expressed a great displeasure that this happens all too often and that most judges in civil cases will just rubber stamp what over a creditor files if there is no one there to oppose from the debtor side. Separately my attorney told me that Florida laws/courts make it very easy for creditors to do this.
Edit: just read your profile. I think you’re doing fantastic work!
Personally, I think people get scared or have a fear of facing a debt collector in court. I believe that when it comes to small claims judgments (i.e. under $10K) there should be a more personal approach that encourages resolution instead of fear. Maybe instead of "default judgments" that are rubber-stamped by judges, the courts move to a more hands-on approach with hearings between mediators, the creditor, and the debtor. While this may require manpower, the time/cost savings of jailing debtors would be savings in the end. I hope the ACLU is successful in getting legislation passed.
> most judges in civil cases will just rubber stamp what over a creditor files if there is no one there to oppose from the debtor side.
Maybe we should teach this better in school, but you gotta show up to court, even if you have to do it without a lawyer. This isn't something that only happens to poor people--even big corporations can have huge default judgments entered against them if they don't show up to defend themselves. (This typically happens with foreign companies who blow off U.S. legal process because they have no U.S. assets.)
This! Sadly, there are many government services that are intended to help the poor in these situations, unfortunately, there is a lack of awareness and/or education about what is exactly available, to whom that help is for, and how to go about receiving that help. For example, many courts have pro-bono attorneys available a few times a month to provide legal advice to those who can't afford to hire an attorney. Most often these services are available for free on a first-come-first-serve basis regardless of income level. They are intended not for criminal defense, but instead to help people navigate civil court issues (i.e. evictions, divorce, collections, etc...).
Yes, showing up can be hard for someone living day-to-day/paycheck-to-paycheck. No amount of education or resources is going to solve that problem. One alternative solution could be for courts to offer alternate hours for these cases.
If people have less than say 5k in assets just block any sort of wage garnishing, etc.. and dismiss the case. Forbid collection of debt, etc. And put the burden of proof onto the collector.
We shouldn't allow debt collectors to take the clothes of peoples back, why should we allow debt collectors to take the last dollar.
I'm not saying this is the only solution, just one of many. The point keep poor people out of the court system, they can't pay anyways, what's the point?
This is already the case: in order to convince a court to garnish wages, debt collectors have to prove to the court that the person accused actually owes the debt. They could also be required to provide evidence that the person is wealthy enough to pay.
A person not paying and not being able to reasonably afford to is no crime and should not involve the court at all: the person who made the loan made a mistake. The reason lendors are allowed to charge interest is so that they can asses the risk they will not be able to recover their investment in some cases -- these are those cases.
If someone can pay and chooses not to, that is a matter for the courts, so if a debt collector wishes to have the courts take money from these people they should have to prove they fall into this category.
Of course, this was a state that didn't require any reason to fire you. Sometimes folks could get unemployment afterwards, sometimes not.
Without a competing power structure to hold employers accountable and keep an eye on their behavior (i.e. a union) the law is a nice sentiment but not much more.
The debt company is gaming the system, but it's also ammoral so we should expect this sort of gaming. And perhaps appreciate it for exposing a bug in the rules of civil society, or what should be civil society.
The question is how do citizens react to this weakness in the system being exposed? Selfish individualism says, doesn't affect me, and that just allows more corruption, classism, and distrust. It illiberalizes society. It damages everyone's ability to trust, be trusted, have predictable and fair outcomes.
Yes the courts should be respected, but not by enacting disproportionate punishment for not showing up. The court still needs to be trusted. Why should only the court system, and the debtee be permitted to set the court date and time? Why not give deference to the accused to set the date and time within a 120 day window? It is more fair. Courts serve the people. And the business serves no one.
I also agree with the ACLU's remedies for adequate notification and burden of proof of debt.
I definitely agree with this.
>Lack of teaching empathy is an education issue.
I disagree here: we live in a hypercapitalist system. Empathy is a competitive disadvantage. Any company that exercises it is weak, and will be culled eventually by companies that don't. Lack of empathy, brutal selfishness and a willingness to exploit the weak are not a cultural problem, but a natural consequence of an economic structure: we cannot teach our children to be nice and hope that it will go away.
You are assuming awareness, proper service, etc. Not to mention assuming that someone can get off work to go. Faced with a choice between spending the day in court to challenge a $127 bill from five years ago or losing your current job for missing work what is the rational choice?
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-court...
The FDCPA has some real protections! Some features:
* You can't contact someone other than the debtor (like their boss) and mention a debt. (You can only say that you're "trying to confirm X's phone number" etc.)
* You can't call after 9pm
* If the debtor asks to not be contacted in any channel other than mail, you must acquiesce immediately (though I think it needs to be in writing)
* If the debtor asks not to be contacted at work, you must respect that
The CFPB has a page on protections: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/category-debt-colle...
And wikipedia has more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Debt_Collection_Practices...
Of course that's expensive and only fixes it until the next sketchy business guy comes along...
I encourage you to imagine a world without the rule of law.
The point is that the courts and police, although vilified in this day and age, actually by their very nature do help the poor and destitute. Just maybe not as well as they could, ideally.
It's discriminatory purely as a function of money. The more money you have, the "more equal" you are and the more rights you can exert. It also means the less subject you are to criminal laws, as you can mount a powerful defense as opposed to someone who makes 20k/yr in the slums who is statistically likely to be black or hispanic.
But our society has spoken, that it's ok for poor people to get sent away and their lives destroyed as a primary function of money.
I think much of this bias emerges for two reasons. First, the news we hear is usually bad news. One can only hear so much bad news before developing negative bias. In a large nation like the USA with so many people, abuses of power are almost guaranteed to happen once in a while. It's critical that a free press report on these incidents to keep institutions honest, but an unfortunate side effect of this is negative bias against those same institutions that so often work well and protect us.
The second reason is that institutions do have power over us, and look large in our lives. In comparison to them, we are very small. This can be disconcerting and uncomfortable for some.
Let’s not ignore all the ways the court system has succeeded, oftentimes in numerous tiny ways (i.e. cases at the state level that set important precedent and have pretty fair outcomes for the involved parties. C.f. restrictive covenants on deeds. The rulings for my state (Michigan), at least, seem pretty well-reasoned and legally logical.)
That is, they're reading it as "since no institution has totally succeeded, I encourage you to imagine a better approach" rather than "while no institution has totally succeeded, I encourage you to imagine how much worse it could be".
When you issue loans at xxx% interest, non payment for a lot of borrowers is baked in. Plus, collection should not free (taxpayers money)
If I loan you $10 and you don't repay it, it's never going to be worthwhile for engage the legal system to reclaim that money. If there's no realistic threat of coming after somebody for $10, then no $10 loans will be offered. I think it's nice to have an environment where legal remedies are accessible to everyone for little to no marginal cost. It promotes pro-social behavior if everyone knows that everyone knows that contracts are always enforced regardless of the economic standing of the participants.