Yes, there is a Debtors Prison in the United States
In the last few months, I have been battling a lawyer’s attempts to get me sent to prison for not paying an unjust civil judgment. I thought that debtor’s prison was for eighteenth century debtors. Prison for twenty-first century debtors exists today in the United States, and if you aren’t careful, you can end up being victim to a sneaky trick that debt collection lawyer’s pull to make you pay up–or else.
I received a letter in the mail from the court in July, stating that if I didn’t “comply with discovery” that I would be held in contempt of court and a warrant would be issued for my arrest. I immediately went down to the county court and asked them what discovery documents I needed to fill out. The clerk said that she had no idea. Seriously, I was being threatened with arrest and the clerk couldn’t even point me in the right direction.
I asked for a copy of my case file, and there was nothing in there other than a mention of me being asked to comply with discovery. So I left a note in the case file stating that I had attempted to comply by coming to the court, but that I had no idea what I was supposed to fill out.
Several weeks later I received a package from the collections lawyer. They wanted thousands of pages of documents from me, including the last six years of bank statements and tax returns. I only keep the last year–and it’s all online. I sent them what I had (I didn’t care, I don’t use the bank account that much anyway, if at all). I also put together what else I had (the IRS only requires 3 years of returns to be kept, so I wondered, why would the lawyer expect me to have 6?).
Three weeks later, the collections attorney filed a motion for Contempt of Court, saying that I was “contemptuous” and “disrespectful” because I hadn’t complied with discovery. I know they got the documents, because I send them with delivery confirmation.
This is the same lawyer who sent documents to an old address and therefore got a judgment against me without any chance for me to defend myself–it should be him that’s in contempt of court!
I wrote another note to the court, and as of today, there’s no court entry for contempt of court. But it’s still hanging over my head. I check every couple of days (online) to see if it’s there–I want to know whether I have to worry about being arrested or not.
The fact is, I don’t live where they think I live so I’m not too worried about the arrest warrant. But it’s the principle of the thing: I was told that if I was arrested, I would have to sit in jail until I complied with the court’s request for discovery. But that isn’t even the debtor’s prison portion of this story.
I briefly consulted an attorney on this matter. He told me that the judge could pull me into court and–on a whim–order me to pay up $3,000 or whatever sum he thought was “fair” with only a little notice–say, 48 hours. And what happens if I don’t pay up? The judge would order me to sit in jail until I paid up.
If that isn’t modern day debtor’s prison–then what is it? I have the skills and knowledge to circumvent the system and not get caught for as long as I feel like it–but what about the uneducated single mom who owes someone a few thousand and is threatened with jail? What about the recently unemployed man who is struggling to support his family and some slithering lawyer plays with the system and gets him thrown in jail?
Our current civil system is an outdated joke–some severe overhauls are warranted.
Luckily for us though, bill collectors aren’t very smart people. They are easy to outwit, using some of the techniques I’ve put on this site. See this post for Why you are smarter than a dumb bill collector.
Related posts:
