subject: Jointly And Severally Liable Judgment Debtors [print this page] When there is more than one debtor listed on a judgment, it often increases the odds that something can be collected on the judgment. This article is my opinion, and not legal advice. I'm a judgment referral expert, and not an attorney. When you ever need a strategy to use or legal advice, you should contact an attorney.
A simple multiple judgment debtor example, would be if Mr. Chris Creditor won his civil judgment against Dan Deadbeat, (Dan's sister) Rhonda Ripoff, and their business associate Sammy Scammer. Chris's judgment states that all three are jointly and severally liable, and all three owe the $60K. Jointly and severally liable means that money might be collected from one, both, or all 3 of those debtors. One cannot legally collect more than the sum of $60K for this example (along with interest and costs) owed from each, or all the debtors listed on the judgment.
Chris Creditor may do post-judgment discovery on all 3 judgment debtors. Chris Creditor may identity and locate each of their assets. If one debtor has non-exempt assets available, enough to repay the entire judgment, the judgment can be collected from that one debtor. If that debtor thinks that's not right, they can file for bankruptcy, try to have the judgment vacated, or most likely, bring this matter up with the other 2 judgment debtors.
The available assets of all three debtors may be garnished to repay that judgment. Very few judgment debtors have $60K lying around in their checking account. Most often, debtor bank levies just capture enough money to partly satisfy a judgment. If Chris Creditor pays a Sheriff to garnish the checking accounts of all 3 judgment debtors and is paid $6K more than what's due; that $6,000 must be given back to the debtor(s) that paid the most, usually as the result of Sheriff levies of their bank account(s).
If there are multiple debtors, which judgment debtor should you try to collect from first? Start with the debtor that seems to have the most available assets. The second answer depends on how each debtor got served notice of their lawsuit, and which judgment debtors cared and appeared at court, when the lawsuit was made into a judgment.
All things being equal, default judgments are weaker judgments. When a debtor is served notice of a lawsuit and then doesn't appear in court, that means any judgment against them will be by default. Sometimes, when several defendants get served notice of a lawsuit against them, some of them appear in court, and others don't.
Judgment debtors who do not appear in court get default judgments against them, and the ones that do appear get standard judgments against them. On a default judgment, judgment debtors may lie and say they were not served, even when they were. If a court believes them, the court may grant a debtor's motion to vacate the judgment.
Default judgments, where the judgment debtor wasn't personally served notice of the lawsuit with a Marshall, Sheriff, or a registered process server, are the weakest judgments of all. Everything being the same, it makes sense to first attempt to collect from the debtors that appeared at court. Among default debtors with the same asset situations, the ones served notice of the lawsuit personally, are the ones to try to collect from first.
When your judgment is eventually repaid or settled, a satisfaction of judgment must be stamped and filed by the court to release every judgment debtor named on your judgment.
