Multiple Judgment Creditors

When a judgment is finalized, plaintiffs are turned into judgment creditors. At my work, I see the complexities with multiple plaintiffs on judgments. Of course, there are at least 2 advantages for judgments to have multiple plaintiffs:

1) To insure that all judgment creditors have an equal chance to collect up to the amount due to them for the judgment. A disadvantage and advantage is that all judgment creditors (or their attorney) must sign, and agree with, all documents which might be related to recovering money on the judgment. Usually, no judgment owners are repaid, unless there's a plan to get them all paid.

2) Suing someone (and then trying to recover a judgment against them) is often expensive. If multiple owners retain the same attorney, with the same case number, and the same judgment debtor; usually the individual judgment creditors save a lot of money, sharing the legal and court expenses.

This article is my opinion and is not, legal advice. I'm a judgment solution expert, and not a lawyer. When you ever want a strategy to use or legal advice, you should retain an attorney. Certain judgments specify what is owed for each plaintiff, as an example plaintiff 1 is owed $70K, and plaintiff two is owed $$30K. When the judgment does not list exact money amounts due to every plaintiff, then it is assumed there is the same percentage ownership of that judgment by all plaintiffs.

Complications may come up if several or one judgment plaintiffs can't be found, or don't agree with the judgment recovery action the other plaintiff judgment creditor(s) wish to attempt. From what I've heard, if there is several plaintiffs on a judgment, all the plaintiffs must sign judgment-related documents, and sometimes get their signatures notarized. As an example, when a judgment recovery effort is arranged with a collection lawyer or collection agency; or the judgment is assigned to a judgment recovery specialist, every plaintiff need to sign documents, and every signature may have to get notarized.

What can you do if one or more of your fellow judgment owners don't agree with your idea to try to sell (always at a sharp discount) or collect the judgment? This may be an impossible circumstance. You'll have to try to reason with them, negotiate with them, or bribe their cooperation.

What could you do if a judgment creditor was related to you that passed away, and you're the executor of their estate? Then you could sign paperwork as their executor, as an example (Executor's name), Executor for (dead individual's name). It's a good idea to keep copies of the death certificate handy, as one may be required.

What can you do if you can't find some of the other judgment creditors named on the judgment, and you want an attorney to try to collect the judgment? If an attorney gets hired and they are successful in recovering some funds (which is split among all plaintiffs); a lawyer can retain the non-client's money, and later attempt to locate any other plaintiffs. Usually, the attorney can't be paid, or take their lawyer's contingency fee, out of the non-client's portion of any recovered funds.

In most states, there is an "unclaimed funds" system set up with their secretary of state. When the remaining judgment creditors cannot be found, your attorney may be able to send the non-client's money to the secretary of state's unclaimed funds system; and later attempt to locate the non-client judgment creditors, to tell them the good news.

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