Ask Me Help Desk - Collecting from Scrooge

My son was owed money for delivering the newspaper. The plaintiff refused to pay or even negotiate when asked by the judge in a pretrial hearing. Almost two years later the court costs and awards have more than doubled the original claim. My son obtained a default judgement which was appealed. Again my son won. The creditor is the president and part owner of a large, local metal fabricating firm. We tried to garnish his wages (despite his attempts to block us serving the documents) and were told that he draws no compensation from the company. At an Examination Hearing today his lawyer tried unsuccessfully several times to have the previous court decisions overturned and to delay the hearing. The judge ordered the hearing to proceed and the creditor claimed he has no sources of income, owns no property and has only a small joint bank account with his wife. The judge ordered him to disclose details of the account so my son can take action to get money from there (I know there will be no money left in that account by the end of today). I then went to the Ontario Land Registry and found that the creditor is the sole owner of his house valued at $500,000. I don't know how to deal with someone who lies so freely (this was not the first time). Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Papercarrier

My son was owed money for delivering the newspaper. The plaintiff refused to pay or even negotiate when asked by the judge in a pretrial hearing. Almost two years later the court costs and awards have more than doubled the original claim. My son obtained a default judgement which was appealed. Again my son won. The creditor is the president and part owner of a large, local metal fabricating firm. We tried to garnish his wages (despite his attempts to block us serving the documents) and were told that he draws no compensation from the company. At an Examination Hearing today his lawyer tried unsuccessfully several times to have the previous court decisions overturned and to delay the hearing. The judge ordered the hearing to proceed and the creditor claimed he has no sources of income, owns no property and has only a small joint bank account with his wife. The judge ordered him to disclose details of the account so my son can take action to get money from there (I know there will be no money left in that account by the end of today). I then went to the Ontario Land Registry and found that the creditor is the sole owner of his house valued at $500,000. I don't know how to deal with someone who lies so freely (this was not the first time). Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Does your son have to appear back in Court? How are the details of the account to be disclosed?

You could either file for another hearing or wait - if there already is another hearing scheduled - and present a printout of what you found concerning the real estate.

Have you spoken to the newspaper about this guy refusing to pay? I am appalled that you have been chasing this jerk for 2 years. Why didn't the newspaper collect directly from this man and pay your son? Is there such a tremendous amount of money involved here that you would keep after this man for 2 years? Don't quite get the picture here. Hopefully you represented yourself versus hired an attorney on this. The rich jerk already spent a fortune on an attorney rather than pay your son. Something's not right with this picture. Have you taken this story to the newspaper and have them print it? Have you taken this story to the local TV newspeople? This would make a great story how a rich turd refuses to pay a little kid for delivering his newspaper.

I willl agree, a photo of a boy standing by a news stand, and headlines of business man cheats boy out of funds,
In fact I may ever go and picket his business
But getting a judgement is easy but collecting is often very hard

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

I willl agree, a photo of a boy standing by a news stand, and headlines of business man cheats boy out of funds,
In fact I may ever go and picket his business
But getting a judgement is easy but collecting is often very hard

In my area EVERYONE who works for the newspaper outside its four walls is a subcontractor - distribution people, delivery people. Probably that's why he had to hire his own Attorney.

I don't know if we're talking about a kid delivering individual newspapers or an adult delivering a bunch, say to a machine inside a business - ?

I was also wondering - did the newspaper boy throw a paper through the guy's window and break it? I used to have papers thrown on my roof (good aim), underneath cars, in the gutter, and thrown so hard against the big picture window that it scared me to think if the paper would break the window I would be showered with glass.

In Florida and up here in Ohio the newspaper would send you a bill for home delivery and you pay the newspaper directly and not the news boy. The bill was generally a pre-paid type bill also.

I've heard of Canadians being cheap and tight but if this is a for real story (I was thinking it could also be an April Fool's Day joke) this rich jerk really takes the cake and the bakery.

It's no joke. My son was 12 years old when this whole thing started. Some background: Paper carriers are subcontractors, they buy the papers and get 5-7 cents per paper delivered. Most subscribers are "paid in office" so they pay the paper directly and it gets credited to the carriers account. Others are "carrier collect" so the carrier has to collect the money at the house. Carriers are notified of changes in collection status, otherwise they have to ask for a list of "carrier collect" customers. Everything went well for a couple of years until a problem with another subscriber caused us to ask for a new list. We found two coustomers who owed money. One paid readily (even apologizing), one did not.

It's the thought of my son delivering those papers through all sorts of rotten weather for a few cents per paper and some of the things that customer said and did that keeps me going on this. I would rather drop the whole thing, but when my son says "I won didn't I? Am I ever going to get my money?" We are only asking for what may son paid out of his pocket for the papers, but $0.40 per day, six days a week for more than a year seems like a lot of money to a child.

The paper offered moral support and one writer did think about doing a story. I thought that would interfer with the legal route, but we amy have to go that way. I don't know if it will have any effect on this person. He seems to have no scruples at all. Judges have warned him to be courteous in court and he is even worse outside.

Cases are tried in the court of public opinion lots of times. In this case, it's a natural for the paper to know about it. So it wouldn't even be a matter of your bringing it to their attention.

Now this guy has to take some compensation from the company. I would get a subpeona for his books and go to the company with a CPA to find out where's he's getting money from the company. If the company doesn't cooperate then name them in the suit.