Vagrant Economy, Dodging Garnishments
I have zero desire to comment on Tawana Brawley, but this article raised an issue at the end that has always been interesting to me. After literally decades of court action, Brawley finally had a garnishment order enforced on her paycheck to start making good on a defamation suit by the man she victimized with her false rape allegations (Which in fact demonstrates another point I have made before -- you can win a judgement in court but that can often be less than half the battle. It can be harder to get the judgement actually paid).
Anyway, apparently as soon as the garnishment order was applied by her employer, she quit the job without a forwarding address (the headline says "loses her job" as if she was fired but the text seems to say she quit, presumably to dodge the garnishment). This happens in my business all the time. On our 400+ employees, we probably get 5-10 new garnishment orders a year, often tax liens or child support payments. These take a while to catch up with people, so while the orders may be years old, the employees might work for me 3-6 months before the order shows up in our office to enforce. (For those who don't know, each state typically requires some sort of new employee notification by our business to the state, so they can run the employee's name and social security number against various data bases to generate these orders).
Once the first garnishment hits their paycheck, at least 80% quit immediately, moving on like Brawley to get another 6 months of work somewhere else before the garnishment presumably catches up to them again. I have no idea how large this group of job vagrants is that are constantly moving to dodge garnishments, but from our sample it is pretty large.
Sam L.:
I did payroll for some stores in the early '90s, and only had one garnishee. He did not quit.
August 14, 2013, 11:01 ammesaeconoguy:
Without getting into the Tawana Brawley case (at which I had a front row seat), it should be noted that Sharpton had “supporters” pay the defamation judgment against him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/nyregion/sharpton-s-debt-in-brawley-defamation-is-paid-by-supporters.html?ref=stevenapagones
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/07/what-do-steven-pagones-kareem-brunner-and-george-zimmerman-have-in-common/
August 14, 2013, 6:23 pmNoumenon72:
If people are getting easier to track down, perhaps this is causing decreased labor mobility, just because you can't hide by getting a new job.
August 15, 2013, 4:30 amirandom419:
I wish they could go after her tax refund.
August 15, 2013, 8:44 amDale:
Why is it up to the employer to accommodate
August 15, 2013, 1:17 pmthis? From the employers point of view
this is a privet matter that has nothing to do with him.
Ron H.:
why do you think she gets a refund?
August 16, 2013, 11:25 pmCraig L:
I bet the government checks and voter registration cards have a lot easier time finding these people.
August 17, 2013, 6:44 pmDanSmith:
So where is Al Sharpton, now that she really needs him? Maybe he could give her 1% of his shakedowns--I mean, NBC income.
August 18, 2013, 6:11 amF.E. Guerra-Pujol (Enrique):
If most actors are "rational" (in the economic sense), why is this form of strategic behavior or "gaming" behavior so surprising to anyone?
August 27, 2013, 5:13 pmRobert Ottinger:
It goes both ways as companies can be deadbeats as well. We recently sued a company for religious discrimination in NYC and won a verdict with legal fees worth approximately $750,000. The company refused to pay a penny and when we moved to enforce the judgment they filed bankruptcy. Turns out they owed the IRS a few hundred thousand as well. They don't pay their debts but the owners have new luxury cars.
August 28, 2013, 10:28 am