"Question for the lawyers out there..." Topic

I recently got into a discussion with a buddy of mine who just found out that he was sued in another state, and lost, and he didn't even know about it.
Apparently about five or so years ago, he had some issue with a business, and quit. He then moved to the West Coast. The state recently sent him a letter saying, "Since you are now living in the West Coast, you now owe the state of XXX so much money for court costs, fees, and for paying out the judgement of your lawsuit that was found against you."

Common sense tells me that this is illegal, or unethical at least, due to the fact that he was never aware of the lawsuit, and was a resident of another state while this was going on.

So the question being….

It is legal for one state to suddenly send a resident of another state a notice saying "oh yeah, we know you aren't a resident of this state, but our laws say that YOU have to do this, yada yada yada…"

????

Yup. Happens all the time! Paul was almost denied a divers license in Washington State because he had an unpaid ticket in Maine… from 15 years ago!

It's the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constition. It requires that states respect the court decisions and recognise debts incurred in another state. Before that, you could run up a massive debt and just move to another state to escape payment. The idea is that you cannot escape your obligations by simply crossing a state line.

The big down side of this implementation. Someone in the originating state has to push for enforcement in the other state. Then a govt' bureaucracy in the other state has to actually take action. For things like child support and criminal findings, this is very common. For small civil actions, it is often not worth anyone's time.

Depending on the size of the award, this may never come to anything. Or it might show up on a acredit report. Or they might actually do something about it. Your friend would likely have to appeal the decision to the appelate courts (assuming the descition was made in an actual court of record) in the originating state.

In any case, seems like he needs a lawyer.

Rob

Rob is right. Long-arm statutes cover things like child support. More facts are needed. Most importantly is the question whether your friend had notice of the problem. Also note, and not to disparage your friend, many times what people say is not necessarily the truth. As Rob says above, this might have been on a credit report. Maybe he was involved in an accident and never followed up on it. There are various reasons why he might have had notice of the problem, and therefore is responsible.

Just a WI lawyer chiming in here: I almost never assume that my client's are telling me the truth. I recognize they are telling me their truth. Sometimes that is an accurate and realistic interpretation of the event, othertimes, not so much so.

Without more facts, this would be difficult to give a better opinion on. It's also not uncommon for persons to "ignore" a legal problem by never going to court, thinking that the problem will just go away if they give it enough time.

Something is very wrong with this story.

The State would never pay out a civil judgement on a defendant's behalf in the first place. It's up to the plaintiff/judgement creditor to take action to collect the judgement debt from the defendant.

Based on the extremely sketchy nature of the information above, I'd guess that

a) someone trying to collect a civil debt from your friend has sent a letter purporting to be from "the State" in hopes that this will spook your friend into paying;

b) the letter really is from the State but is attempting to collect some actual statutory debt like unpaid tickets or child support; or

c) the story is actually quite different from what you have been told.

If I had to put money on it, I'd go with "c". ;-)

Cheers

w.
'96 call to the Bar

You forgot
d) The Nigerian Finance Minister's Widow is trying a new scam.

Five years? Possibly somethng to do with making a claim so the statute of limitations can be extended?
Grelber

I agree with the others here – tell your friend to take the documents to a lawyer and pay him to find out what happened and get it resolved. That is why we are here – to fix legal problems. As for your friends story – I doubt that a state – any state would pay out anything on a civil judgment. States like to keep their money. The State WOULD seek to have him pay any court costs, but the State would absolutely NOT pay out any civil judgment to anyone. It is up to the collection agent of the civil party to get the money.

So, the story sounds very fishy, and probably isn't the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So, hope your friend goes to the appropriate attorney locally and gets this taken care of.

I agree with the folks above. Something sounds fishy.

Although not a lawyer, I have spent more than my fair share of time in court. In a case where the other party did not show up, the judge would not go forward with the case until I had proven the other party had sufficient notification and a chance to appear.

Except for a couple of states and child support, I have never heard of a state paying a civil settlement on behalf of the other party.

Maybe there's a "warm bundle of love" out there, a product of some short lived romance?

Depending on the judgment, he might be able to get it set aside for failure of service, but something does sound wrong with the fact pattern. I never heard of a state that would pay your judgment for you, and then come after you.