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Judgment Enforcement – The Step-by-Step Course

Want an example? I’ll give you a simple elementary school example just to make a point:

Freedom of Speech: It’s in the constitution clear and simple. Well, maybe not so simple.
Because there is a lot of case law that explains just what this freedom is.

We all know we can’t shout fire in a movie theater. Because it’s dangerous to others. But
can we shout whatever we want on a street corner? In a classroom? Or in a restaurant? Can

I write anything I want and put it on the Internet? What about how to build a bomb? What
about posting nude pictures of my neighbor? Just what are the limits of what we call “free
speech”?

The constitution doesn’t tell us. But case law does.

For example, in 1977 a town in Illinois sued the Nazis for waving their stupid flag around
in a Jewish neighborhood, and it want all the way to the Supreme Court in the case known
as National Socialist Party of America versus The Village of Skokie. And, the court
decided that their flag waving and all was protected speech.

See? This case law further defined the limits of free speech. (Do we like it in this instance?
Not me. But we don’t have to protect speech that we already like. It’s unpopular speech
that needs protection. The Court knew this.)

✓ Here’s a JE Example of how we can use Case Law:

In all states, we can question a JD about his or her assets; we can actually bring that person
back into court and demand answers under penalty of perjury. Here is the CA law on this:

708.110. (a) The judgment creditor may apply to the proper court for an order requiring the
judgment debtor to appear . . . to furnish information to aid in enforcement of the money
judgment.
Okay, but what can we ask? How many questions? How complete must the answers be?

How deep can we delve to find the assets that the JD may be hiding? What if he doesn’t
want to answer? The CA law doesn’t say.
But here’s some CA case law on that point:

While the relevance of some of the questions may seem remote, the purpose of a judgment debtor
examination is to leave no stone unturned in the search for assets which might be used to satisfy the
judgment. Because the questions were aimed at eliciting relevant evidence, the trial court properly
directed Troy to answer them. In: Troy v Superior Court of LA County 1986.

So, sometimes we need case law to tell us what the law “means,” exactly. Super handy
stuff. In this case, we can ask anything we want, no limits, as long as it tends in logic to
possibly lead to discovery of assets.

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