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County in rural Kansas is jailing people for medical debt

They are being jailed for failing to appear but I am not sure about the law requiring them to continuously appear every three months as opposed to making the lawyers refile on them. They should just declare bankruptcy.
 
Drawdown said:
They are being jailed for failing to appear but I am not sure about the law requiring them to continuously appear every three months as opposed to making the lawyers refile on them. They should just declare bankruptcy.
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Page out of trumps book, the self proclaimed king of debt!!!
 
Digger said:
I guess it's not, really. What is your possition?
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I am very much against the idea of the government putting people in prison over debts, public or private.

My point was that it's nothing new.
 
GDViking said:
Page out of trumps book, the self proclaimed king of debt!!!
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In my state it is called a summons to answer interrogatories. The person does not have to show up at the trial, but once there is a judgment, the creditor can compel you to appear to answer questions under oath at the court once every 6 months. Don't show up after being served, then you will be arrested just as this person was. They will hold you in jail until the hearing can be rescheduled and can technically fine you but usually the Judge will just call you and say, "Get your ass down here and ask them the questions so we can get them released". Only thing different is you have to file a new one every 6 months. This law allows the court to order you to keep having to reappear after only 1 filing. I had to do it on the creditor side once and the judge just sent us into a backroom and said to ask the bailiff to let them know if he needed to get involved. Once I was done, the court then did the hearing to release them. All I wanted was either their employer information or bank account info so I could file a garnishment. Their employer ended up not garnishing their wages after getting that order so then I had to file a show cause summons against them so the court made them pay me the entire debt and filing fees.
 
Drawdown said:
In my state it is called a summons to answer interrogatories. The person does not have to show up at the trial, but once there is a judgment, the creditor can compel you to appear to answer questions under oath at the court once every 6 months. Don't show up after being served, then you will be arrested just as this person was. They will hold you in jail until the hearing can be rescheduled and can technically fine you but usually the Judge will just call you and say, "Get your ass down here and ask them the questions so we can get them released". Only thing different is you have to file a new one every 6 months. This law allows the court to order you to keep having to reappear after only 1 filing. I had to do it on the creditor side once and the judge just sent us into a backroom and said to ask the bailiff to let them know if he needed to get involved. Once I was done, the court then did the hearing to release them. All I wanted was either their employer information or bank account info so I could file a garnishment. Their employer ended up not garnishing their wages after getting that order so then I had to file a show cause summons against them so the court made them pay me the entire debt and filing fees.
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In this case bail is $500 and it goes to the creditors.
 
aociswundumho said:
I am very much against the idea of the government putting people in prison over debts, public or private.

My point was that it's nothing new.
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It's a lot harder to muster sympathy for deadbeat parents than for a parent working two jobs with a sick child. But I guess this is a good example of how tyrannical laws can start off targeting unpopular groups, and then expand.
 
Digger said:
In this case bail is $500 and it goes to the creditors.
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More than likely it really just goes to the lawyer who probably has boxes full of these things trying to churn his fees by harassing the people and getting a cut of what he collects. Someone was telling me there were a lot of people locally screwed over by a law firm that had a debt collection business that bought debt then the law firm "represented" the business to double dip that took out massive numbers of judgments and then went tits up after the recession. The creditors couldn't take the payments because they had sold them to the debt collection business and the law firm shut down when that racket failed so people were having trouble clearing these debts off their credit reports.
 
Not surprised, conservatives are asssholes. Can fraud people out of millions and have to pay a small fine if you are rich. But if you are poor, you go to jail for being in debt. after all, have to feed the prison system to make sure money flows to the rich.
 
Cool, let's have debtors prisons for people who choose to have heart attacks! Yee haw
 
Sampson Simpson said:
Not surprised, conservatives are asssholes. Can fraud people out of millions and have to pay a small fine if you are rich. But if you are poor, you go to jail for being in debt. after all, have to feed the prison system to make sure money flows to the rich.
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Simply being in debt is not a crime. Only the right wing prefers to criminalize poverty.
 
code1211 said:
According to the article, the jail penalties are for contempt of court due to failure to appear before the judge, not the medical debts.

Calling it Debtor's Prison is fake news.
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According to reality, that is a weaselly way to get around the spirit of the law and create a debtor's prison in all but name.

Which part of this are you saying is fake? Are you saying it's not happening or are you saying there's nothing wrong with it?
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
If Trump wins this year, they will jail people for criticizing the President.
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What to bet on that.


Or was that just your TDS not letting you post without attacking Trump despite the thread having nothing to do with trump.
 
Moonglow said:
It's freakin' Kansas you know eh...
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Yes because liberal places like California don’t jail people for showing up to court.

Let me guess you didn’t actually read the article and just fell for the dishonest headline because it fits your partisan world view.
 
Digger said:
According to reality, that is a weaselly way to get around the spirit of the law and create a debtor's prison in all but name.

Which part of this are you saying is fake? Are you saying it's not happening or are you saying there's nothing wrong with it?
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Did he go to jail for his debt or for failing to show up in court.

People go to jail all the time for failing to show up to court for all kinds of reason.
Pretending it’s due to not paying debt is just silly.
 
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