Video

  • 13 minutes

Enforcement of Judgments Against Business Entities

 
When you file a lawsuit the goal is to get a judgment. If your customer, the defendant, is defunct and without assets often times they won’t respond to a lawsuit and you’ll obtain judgment by default. Other times the defendant will fight tooth and nail, taking every possible step to prevent you from obtaining a judgment, and you will need more involvement of your legal counsel to get through those steps and get to a judgment. A judgment is a court determination that the defendant owes you money of a certain amount that is set forth in the judgment. But obtaining the judgment isn’t always the end of the road. The defendant should pay the judgment but often times they do not. Once you have a judgement and you have made a determination that without some further prodding your customer is not going to pay you have to make a choice. If you know where your customer’s wealth is (money on deposit, real estate, etc.) you can take your judgment and, using whatever procedures are authorized by your state laws and civil procedure, send whoever is the authority designated by your state out to seize assets, to attach bank accounts, deliver them over to you, in which you would liquidate them in order to pay the judgment. In many situations you don’t know where your customer’s assets are and the best way to enforce them.

In this 12-minute video our speaker, Robert W. Pontz, reviews what he calls shock and awe vs. discovery in aid of execution. He also discusses attachment of bank accounts and other property rights; executing against stock, partnership shares and LLC memberships; and bankruptcy issues.

Robert W. Pontz is a founding partner of Brubaker Connaughton Goss & Lucarelli, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His practice emphasizes commercial collections, representation of creditor interests in business bankruptcies and business counseling. Mr. Pontz is a frequent local and regional speaker at seminars covering advanced collection topics and commercial bankruptcy.
Runtime: 12 minutes

Faculty

Robert W. Pontz

Robert W. Pontz

Brubaker Connaughton Goss & Lucarelli