Hacker News Reader

Comment by bjornsing | Hacker News Reader

As I read the OP they get thrown in jail for not appearing in court. Isn’t that very different?

It is not very different. People don't show up for a variety of reasons, including inability[1] and plaintiff shenanigans[2].

But yes, people looking for a reason to blame the victim will use process arguments like that to ignore the reality of what is happening.

[1] We're talking about people with medical issues and no money; that can mean no car or no house or no personal mobility.

[2] As anecdata, someone I know was sued for nonpayment of a loan. Papers were served by mail and arrived the day of the hearing; postal carrier timing meant it arrived right as she would have had to appear, even if she hadn't been at work. Default judgement, and she didn't have the money to hire a lawyer to contest it. See how that works?

I was sued and the order to appear never arrived. I spoke to the judge and she said it doesn't matter. If it was sent out with USPS, it's considered delivered. They don't have to prove it was even delivered.

This article was clear that the judge required defendants to be properly served. I can't speak to everywhere, but I thought that was pretty standard practice.

You mean the judge that never even studied law?

Yes, that one, if you read the article like I did:

> He made sure no one was arrested unless they’d been reached by personal service or certified mail.

> As long as the defendant had been properly served, the judge’s answer was always yes.

I'm not trying to justify anything else, but the experience of being arrested without being properly served does not align with the article in question.

Not even registered mail?

If you dont have the money to pay bills how do you afford to get to court ?

Being poor is illegal ;)

Court is just a building in town. If you are healthy, you can just walk there.

The bigger problem in this case is that the people being sent to court probably cannot easily walk there, because they are unhealthy.

It’s effectively criminalizing illness.

This argument is preposterous.

There are so many reasons poor people find it difficult to appear in court. A huge, and very easy to imagine, issue is that poor people tend not to have time flexibility; with everyone screaming at them to pick up another job, how could they possibly appear in court as well?

Another very easy to imagine issue is getting healthcare outside of this “town” everyone seems to live in in the above argument, could make appearing in court difficult as well.

The argument that “all poor people are fat and ill” is not just lazy, but outright ridiculous.

> Court is just a building in town. If you are healthy, you can just walk there.

If you happen to live in town and that town happens to be where the State put the courthouse for that county.

Plenty of counties in this country are bigger than Rhode Island -- not just in the middle of nowhere, either.

True. I live in a county that is twice the size of Rhode Island. I work in a county that is the size of Rhode Island. And both counties are far from what you would call "rural" [1].

[1] For the record, Palm Beach County, Fl (main city: West Palm Beach) and Broward County, Fl (main city: Ft. Lauderale), respectively.

These companies use the court and no shows to give them ground to go after people, when otherwise they'd have ZERO case. It is a total abuse of the court system.

Why is your presence compelled in court?

That's how the American court system works. Someone can present information against you and, if you're not around to refute it, the judge is allowed to enter a default verdict.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com