Bankruptcy

After Notice and a Hearing -- One Out of Two Ain't Bad?

By Bob Lawless

Wow. I missed this one last week. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has brought civil and criminal charges against lawyers and process servers who were abusing the debt collection system. From the New York Times article:

The cornerstones of due process are notice and a hearing. It sounds like these consumers were only getting half of that, and without notice that it is going to occur, the hearing does not do much good. From the press release, it sounds like the problem was with the process servers who are alleged to have knowingly failed to serve process. After serving process, the process server files an affidavit swearing that it was done. A false affidavit is akin to perjury, hence the criminal charges against some participants.

Hat tip to Brian Wolfman and Jeff Sovern over at the Consumer Law & Policy Blog for pointing the way to the story.

Full post as published by Credit Slips on July 26, 2009 (boomark / email).