My son was sick ended up in the hospital. The insurance wrongfully denied the claim. The hospital in turn began garnishing my husbands checks in excesses of $600 every 2 weeks. The insurance first tried to tell me that we were not covered during the dates my son was in the hospital which was a blatant lie. Then they turned to point the finger at the hospital claiming that the hospital gave them the wrong information and that was why the claim was rejected. We are behind on our mortgage all of our utilities are being threatened to be shut off and as a result of this my depression and anxiety are back with a vengeance. All of this is at NO fault of mine of my husband's. The result is that the hospital was eventually paid and claims that my husband's checks will not be touched anymore. Which is what they said about this check and yet and still it too was garnished. I would like to know if I have grounds to sue either the insurance company or the hospital or both? I am in the state of Virginia.

In order for the hospital to have garnished his checks they had to file a lawsuit and win a judgment and then file to have the garnishment of his wages done. This was not an overnight process by any means.

How did the hospital garnish his checks without a court order to do so?

They had a court order but the thing is that the claim was falsely denied by the insurance company which is why they have been garnishing the checks. They got their money from the insurance company now.

Why didn't you raise this defense when you were sued by the Hospital?

I'd go to Small Claims Court and get back the money was sent to the hospital by both your husband's employer AND the hospital before I did anything else.

I'm not clear on one detail - after the hospital was paid in full by the insurance company they continued to garnishee your husband's wages and refused to return the double payment to you?

The hospital has returned only part of the monies to my husband's employers payroll. We have not seen any of the money yet. The hospital is claiming not to know what happened to the rest of the money. In actuality we only owed the hospital $150 but they claim not to know where $600 has gone. We did not raise defense because when this garnishment was first served in December 2007 we were assured by husband's employer that everything would be taken care of because we were covered by insurance and supposedly this issue was resolved.Husband's payroll supposedly took care of it and made sure that the payment was made by the insurance company and received by the hospital. But in August we got this garnishment summons for a date we of course could not attend anyway because it was nearly 2 yrs ago. We were completely blindsided and never had a chance to fight it other than in 2007. Once we were served with the garnishment summons it began that next pay period.

the hospital has returned only part of the monies to my husband's employers payroll. We have not seen any of the money yet. The hospital is claiming not to know what happened to the rest of the money. In actuality we only owed the hospital $150 but they claim not to know where $600 has gone. We did not raise defense because when this garnishment was first served in December 2007 we were assured by husband's employer that everything would be taken care of because we were covered by insurance and supposedly this issue was resolved.Husband's payroll supposedly took care of it and made sure that the payment was made by the insurance company and received by the hospital. But in August we got this garnishment summons for a date we of course could not attend anyway because it was nearly 2 yrs ago. We were completely blindsided and never had a chance to fight it other than in 2007. Once we were served with the garnishment summons it began that next pay period.


I'm not asking why you didn't protest the garnishment - once the Judgment is awarded it's out of your hands. I'm asking why you didn't protest at the time you were served with the papers by the creditor, the papers advising you that the hospital was seeking a judgment against you.

I don't understand why the garnishment notice had a hearing date on it (a date two years prior). It should have a Judgment date on it, nothing more.

If you were not served with the original papers concerning the lawsuit, you can always file to have the Judgment dismissed for bad service. At this point that seems like one big waste of time.

If no one can account for the missing money I would go to Small Claims Court and file against the hospital - take your paperwork and anything you can get from the employer and the insurance company which indicates that the hospital was, in fact, paid twice.

These problems are always very complicated because there are multiple parties and it apepars that everyone is pointing at everyone else. I'd get to Small Claims Court and get it resolved.