I just posted about my own credit problems, but I wanted to talk about my experience in the civil court. I work in the civil division of a General District Court. On the last recent court day it was a day where one particular law firm had about 50 cases. They pick a day each month that they come in on all their cases in my area. I won't go into specifics about the process, but I will say this. If a person does not come in and contest...they will fill out the paperwork for a default judgment and I check to ensure they have proper validation for their suit before letting the judge render a decision. Most of them have copies of contracts signed by the defendant but I had 15 or so from one creditor that only had the warrant in debt and their (the law firm's) statement of account. Nothing from the creditor, NOTHING....no signed contract, no statements showing transactions on the account. It will be up to my judge to decide if they get the judgment. From what I have read on here this is NOT proper validation and should not be used to enter judgment against someone. I just want to say to people..... please show up for court if you get a summons. They will get a judgment against you and they will garnish your wages. And if you are talking about a credit card with 25% interest from date of judgment until the time the garnishment ends, you will never get out of that! I have processed papers where the original judgment amount was $5,000, they had garnished over $7,000 and the person still owes $10,000 because of the interest and filing fees. Every time they file another garnishment they can add that to what you owe them. Also, I want to say if you do have this happen come to court and talk with the attorney or call them. Most of the ones I deal with will work with the defendants. 9 times out of 10, the ones I deal with on a regular basis will give you a chance. Once the judgment is entered though they will go through all means necessary to collect. This is only MY experience though...I'm sure there are some who are not so understanding.
It isn't a question of validation in most cases that lawyers would bring to your court. The lawyer isn't in violation unless the defendant demanded validation either verbally or in writing and the attorney didn't provide that but proceeded to file anyway. Most people have no idea about validation, overshadowing or any of that so most of the time the lawyers probably haven't violated that section of FDCPA. But that isn't the end of the problem in most courts throughout America. I posted about the 7 elements of jurisdiction yesterday and if those elements which are applicable to the case at bar aren't present the court has no jurisdiction (right) to even hear the case. If they do then they are violating the defendant's constitutional right to due process of law which is one of man's most basic rights under the law. What passes through your office in almost unbelievable volume every day is almost certain to rise to the level of fraud and fraud upon the court as well. So most of those lawyers bringing in the type of sloppy paperwork you describe are not the respected members of your community you and most others see them as but rather people who routinely commit criminal acts with impunity. When your judge accepts their legal garbage and passes judgment he performs criminal acts as well. But there are very few people who care about such things because the plaintiff has been wronged by the defendant and when judgment has been issued justice has supposedly been served. The popular view is basically no different than much of the justice handed out a couple of hundred years ago on the American frontier. People were hung by the neck until dead on the spot without benefit of trial or any sort of due process of law. What passes for justice in our courts today isn't much different when you get right down to the basics. I'm guessing that you are either a court clerk or are employed in a county clerk's office. As you said, you see numerous cases every day where the defendant's rights to due process of law are violated. You are properly dismayed by what you see but there is little or nothing you can do to put a stop to it. By law they can file anything they want and your duty is to file it whether it is proper or not. If people bring you something to file written on toilet paper your job requires you to file it without protest. If you refuse you can lose your job. You can examine the paperwork to determine where it should be filed or whether or not there are any fees associated with the filing but that is about the extent of what you can do or say. If you want to do something about the problems you see you will have to do it outside the office and on your own time. Above all, don't risk your job trying to defend someone else's right to due process of law. If there are no groups in your city such as Jurisdictionary then maybe you should consider starting such a group in your city. If some such group exists then join it and work to help bring change through community action. You can't do it without community support and lots of it.
The attorney is not required to validate the debt even if it is demanded. Once a lawsuit is filed the question of liability for the debt falls upon the court. If the attorney is acting as the debt collector then yes, there is a possible violation. I tell my business clients not to bother with collection agencies. If they ultimately want their money, they (business) duns the customer, failing a favorable response, file suit.
That's very true but once demanded then any attempt to file a lawsuit sans validation becomes a different matter. Filing a lawsuit without having provided the demanded validation is illegal continued collection activity and a cause of action against the attorney. Quite so. That's appropriate advice but can lead to real problems for both the plaintiff and the attorney if they run into the wrong defendant. So far attorneys and debt collectors have ran into the wrong defendant more than 28,000 times and the number grows daily. Some of the larger debt collectors have been sued over 400 times and still keep on making the same mistakes over and over again. It isn't that they don't care about lawsuits or don't ever learn their lessons. It is a matter of profit and loss. If the profit from violating the law is greater than the losses incurred from their illegal actions they will continue to do the same thing until the time comes when enough consumers become aware of their rights and learn how to stand up and fight back successfully. That will probably never happen. The only thing that would change that picture would be to make at least some of the violations carry a criminal penalty with a stiff manditory sentence. That will probably never happen either.
