Citation Numbers: 176 Misc. 835
Judges: Cupp
Filed Date: 2/19/1941
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 1/12/2023
Motion by the judgment creditor herein for leave to withdraw two motions to punish for contempt. By decision dated January 8, 1941, said motions had been referred to an official referee to hear and determine. Orders have been submitted but they have not been signed.
The path of one moving to punish a person for contemptuous conduct in that he has obstructed justice by improperly and corruptly hindering a judgment creditor in his quest for assets is no trail of roses. The court should render no steeper that uphill climb. The administration of justice must lend its fullest co-operation to that determined creditor, who spends time and money to save from quiet and peaceful interment in the county clerk’s office a mighty judgment of a court of justice. A court’s chief function is to produce results in terms of cash, not merely to issue documents with high sounding names, which the sophisticated judgment debtor, his associates and all who follow his lead, find no trouble in reducing to a mere slip of paper or an empty record, destined to rest unnoticed in the archives of the clerk for the county. A judgment capable of being converted into cash is what the successful litigant sought when he came to court -Ordinarily the business man is not interested in procedural processes. While those processes are essential, nothing should stand in the way of attaining the court’s ultimate objective. Therefore, after judgment, the court should not discourage the judgment creditor who is seeking to expose the cheat; that person who having assumed obligations brazenly, which he never intended to pay, suffers a default judgment
There is no disgrace in being poor. Good men and women often find themselves unable to meet their obligations. Some misjudge their ability to pay or adversity intervenes. Finding themselves in that unfortunate predicament, they should not add to the debt that they owe by impeding their creditors in the latter’s effort to collect. Judgment debtors owe the moral obligation to their creditors (it should be compulsory) to appear in supplementary proceedings for examination without the usual cost to the creditor occasioned by sending process servers after them. By their testimony they should establish frankly and candidly by books, etc., when possible, the state of their finances. Nothing short of a complete, willing disclosure and the fullest co-operation with the creditor and his attorney will attain for a judgment debtor who has no property or funds the title of “ an honest debtor ”— a characterization for which all who cannot pay their obligations should strive. No honorable person should be satisfied with less. On the other hand, a creditor may not persecute.
When a record of an examination in supplementary proceedings is submitted to an experienced judge, he recognizes at once 11 an honest debtor.” Frankness labels him. It is not always as easy to discover the cheat. The creditor’s attorney in collection cases usually is called upon to construct his case to discover assets from the testimony of the judgment debtor and his associates. It is not an easy task. Sometimes collection must be abandoned because of the client’s unwillingness “ to send good money after bad money.”
I am making no decision as to the merits of this controversy. What I have said above is not directed against the judgment
Motion granted.