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Comment by riverlong | Hacker News Reader

This is absolutely terrible and irresponsible advice. "Declare bankruptcy immediately and protect your assets" is the worst possible way to handle the situation, since: 1. Losing the court case does exactly what you don't want to happen here; 2. On top of that, you get to go bankrupt! Ruin!

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You keep your primary car, house, and retirement accounts in bankruptcy. It’s not the end of the world.

It's much worse than that. You will be on the hook for garnished wages for years to pay off your creditors. And you will have plenty of creditors because the GP's advice says "go lose a civil case". You know what a civil case has? Damages. You know how large the damages are if your strategy is to lose? Big. They have a trademark case so they could get attorney's fees. We're talking about a seven figure bill in fees alone if the case goes to trial. Following this advice could have the OP getting his wages garnished as long as he lives to pay off a multimillion dollar debt. Good luck with that.

Wrong. That is the whole point of declaring bankruptcy, because the debts can't be paid. Nearly all debt, including civil damages, will be wiped clean, and this includes one's own attorneys fees. Why would you say these things when it is abundantly clear you have absolutely no idea? If what you said was true, no one would ever declare bankruptcy. It's the whole point of it, to be free of debt. No one gets their wages garnished after declaring bankruptcy. Never happened, ever.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_11,_Title_11,_United_S...

Depends on the type of bankruptcy and in what jurisdiction. Even in the US with very creditor-favourable bankruptcy laws, you can’t just declare bankruptcy to get out of financial obligations: owing a bunch of people money is not the basis for bankruptcy. Yes, if bankruptcy is approved, wage garnishing will stop, but it can resume depending on the type! Bankruptcy is not a get out of debt free card, it’s the last stop after ruin.

Before ruin, you mean. It prevents ruin, defranchising and homelessness. The worst thing about it is what it does to your credit rating. That's not unbearable.

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