Does a judgment from 1981 accrue interest until it's collected?

Question

A moneteray judgement was made in 1981 and the person who was to pay filed bankruptcy, so it went uncollected. Now this person was in the newspaper bragging about making a killing selling his business. Would the judgement have grown due to some type of interest written into the law.
It was a city/county district court case based on physical injury and responsibility for said injury.
Thanks

Answer 1

It depends on many things. What did the judgment say? If the person filed for amount due plus % interest from DOJ, and was awarded both, then yes. Not all judgments have this. You have to have access to a record of the case. Was it discharged in the bankruptcy? Each state has their own laws about what can be discharged, and what can't. If you are the one that the judgment was in favor of, I suggest you go down to the court where it was filed in and take a look at the case to see what was awarded in the ruling. I also suggest you look at your state's laws to see if this could have been discharged.

http://www.freeadvice.com
This should give you some great links to your local laws and statues. You can also find a lawyer to help you decide the next course of action if you are owed the money. If you are, then you can file for a garnishment against the person. The money will come out of their paycheck automatically. If he doesn't have a job anymore, there are other ways to get the money, but I don't remember enough to tell you here.
A court order is different from a credit collection in that a collection agency has limited options to collect their oney, but a court order has more power, so you have a better chance to collect.
Why are you waiting so long to collect anyway? After 25 years, I'd think you would have taken action by now.

Answer 2

Judgments generally earn interest from the date of entry to the date of collection, In NY this is 9% per year. However, there are several problems you may face.

1. Most judgments, when docketed/entered are good for 10 years (or such other length of time as provided in your state). At the end of that time period, you may have to re-file the judgment to keep it enforceable. You may be able to re-file it now, but then you'd loose a lot of interest.

2. Were you listed as a creditor during the bankruptcy proceeding? If so, then you must look to the bankrupcy decree to see what your rights were, if any. It is possible that your judgment was vacated and rendered null and void and you will never see a dime of the money owed to you.

3. If they were supposed to pay the debt or never completed the bankruptcy, then you should still be able to go after them. (Some people file for bankruptcy to stop collection activities, and then finish the process, so the bankruptcy petition is eventually dismissed. The creditor many times does not know that the petition has been dismissed and forgets to enforce their judgment. Under the new bankruptcy laws this is very difficult to do at the present time.)

4. Some debts cannot be eliminated via bankruptcy. Yours sounds like one that can, but if the judgment was entered before the bankruptcy, it should have been one of the higher priority items. (Meaning you should have gotten something, even if it was 10 cents on the dollar.)

Answer 3

It depends on the nature of the judgement and of the bankruptcy as well.

Truthfully, the best course of action for you is to contact an attorney to see what recourse, if any, you have with regard to this matter.

Answer 4

You may need to do some research, read through the judgement and see what it says as far as interest, you may have to file suit and bring what you have discovered to the judges attention, do it now before he/she spends the money/profit that was made.

Answer 5

No.

Bankruptcy wrote the debt off.

There is also a statue of limitations on most debts.

Answer 6

im not sure i know with the government interest never stops

Answer 7

Sorry, but you are out of luck with this one.