I am not a lawyer, I am a Judgment Broker. This article is my opinion, and not legal advice, based on my experience in California, and laws vary in each state. If you ever need any legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer.
Before any money can be paid from the sale of a judgment, or any money can be recovered on a judgment, it is essential to precisely identify your judgment debtor.
It is critical to know exactly who your judgment debtor is, and what available assets they may have, before trying to sue someone or to collect a judgment. After that, one needs to know for sure that the judgment is correct and effective.
Judgments can be flawed, making them very difficult to recover. There may be important issues to resolve, before a judgment can be collected. It is absolutely necessary to determine whether or not the judgment is enforceable.
The first issue is, who is named on the lawsuit that later turned into a judgment? Only persons or entities specifically mentioned inside the body of the judgment will owe you money. One cannot count on the captions, which are the abbreviated names listed at the top of judgments. Judgments specify exactly who is liable and what they owe, only in their body.
Many lawsuits do not name the entity or person that owes the money correctly or specifically enough. Some lawsuits create judgments that can never be enforced.
Common mistakes in lawsuits are not correctly spelling people's names, not paying enough attention to a company's DBA or corporate status, and not researching the defendants enough before suing them. Also, the proof of service is very important. A defective proof of service or an incorrect name, can get the judgment set aside (vacated).
As a judgment broker, I see many thousands of judgments. I have seen a few judgments that listed the defendant's age, date of birth, partial social security number, and a current address, within the body of the judgment. That is simply awesome, I wish every judgment showed all that information.
All too often, judgments against debtors with common names end up worthless. If you sue Dan Debtor, who seems to stay at 123 Cheaters Lane, there may be potential problems.
What if the judgment debtor's Dad, Son, Grandfather, and Uncle, all have the exact same name? What if your judgment debtor's name is very common, and he was only visiting where he was served notice of the lawsuit? What if he never lived, paid rent, or paid bills, at that address?
What if you won your judgment by default? All of the sudden, you may not know for sure which Dan Debtor owes you the money. It may be very troublesome to do examinations, levies, or garnishments, as it will be so easy for a Dan Debtor to say "it's not me, it's my...".
In that default judgment situation, it is best to serve possible judgment debtors first, and get them into court, to iron out the "is this the right judgment debtor?" question, before wasting time and money, looking for assets of the wrong person; or paying a Sheriff to possibly levy the wrong person's assets.
Always be certain to name and identify the right person or entity in your lawsuit, and when you are trying to recover a judgment. There should never be any confusion about who exactly is, your judgment debtor.
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