"You ignore it" is certainly an... interesting... way to phrase how this usually occurs. There use to be a legal requirement that they actually told you, but it no longer exists in most places. Now, they simply need to have "tried" to tell you or "potentially" told you.
Though I do find the whole "You cannot afford to pay this bill, so we will need you to both miss out on a days income, as well as pay what may be significant transportation costs, in order to prove it."
And even if you DO, it basically gets you back to the same situation you were before.
This is called service of process and it's a major pain under Rule 3. Here's what happened. It used to be, believe it or not, fairly easy to find people. Now, people actually freaking hide or just are somehow hard to find. They don't even use landlines anymore, they use a cell phone so they aren't even in the book....
It's often hard to know where to send something certified mail to someone, or they'll get the cert mail and just refuse to accept/sign for it. Then you send it regular mail. Process servers are possible but expensive and they earn it. Some asshole tried to slug me in the face right in front of a Cleveland Police Officer for serving him papers. So given that people, in practicality, have tried to game the system, this means it is now ruined for everyone.
Now, that's not to say there aren't unscrupulous plaintiffs out there abusing the system. There are, believe me, Ive seen them. Then there's the practicality of fighting it once someone has a default judgment against you you didn't know about.... People don't know to hire me, or don't want to hire a lawyer, to file a 60(B) motion, to challenge service and jurisdiction and sometimes they can't afford to pay me or just flat out don't fucking want to pay for a lawyer. This is how stuff goes wrong. I won't work for free (and neither will anyone else, nor should they have to).
Basically, if we don't pay for Justice, (one way or another) then we won't have it.
Creditor/Debtor rights and relations are a hard thing. Unfortunately the creditors in recent years have literally rewritten the bankruptcy code as BAPCPA in 2005. It was untouched prior to this since 1978 and was doing just fine. Even forgetting about bankruptcy, there's suit, judgment and garnishment under state law. I can see both sides of it. On the one hand, the creditor is owed their money. On the other, it isn't like you're going to squeeze blood from a stone. Though I am inclined to say that Rich people just never want to admit they lost shit or that it isn't worth what they thought it was. What do you do?
I personally hate the idea of civil imprisonment and use it as little as humanly possible if I'm suing will actually work with me and aren't just playing games. Debtor's prisons are kinda nuts as an Idea and there's a reason we got rid of them. At some point, you've gotta realize the person is not going to be able to pay the debt and the value of that debt to the creditor as an asset is not panning out. After that, you can either keep on beating that dead horse, or you can move on and try to salvage something. Pick wisely.
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Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1286091 times)