On Tue, 3 Feb 1998, Eric Cordian wrote:
In a further blatant erosion of Constitutional rights, the California Supreme Court has ruled that a person owing child support who fails to seek or accept work may be jailed and fined for contempt of court, and that this does not violate any Constitutional bans on involuntary servitude or imprisonment for debt.
This reverses nearly a century of contrary rulings. Look for this "improved" interpretation to be expanded to other kinds of debts and judgments as well, as soon as massive public acceptance of it for the carefully picked child support issue is engineered.
Expected targets: -- Student loans (There are already a number of nasty collection methods made legal to "crack down" on those who are behind in their payments.) -- State and local taxes -- Garnishments of wages
The credit card companies are no doubt carefully analyzing this decision as we speak.
As well as anyone else in the collections business. alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys.