OneofGodskids
New Member
Can we be sued for garnishment of wages if we have been paying our judgment as agreed? The back story on this is long but basically we had a debt that we were being sued. After much searching and cross checking (the debt collector, who is also the suing lawyer never responded to my requests for validation) I found what the debt was for. My husband decided to make an agreement to pay with the lawyer. This agreement was brought before the judge and we have a legal agreed judgment. We have been paying that judgment on time and as agreed. Now, 4 months later the attorney is suing us for garnishment of wages. My husband called his office to ask what this was about since we have been paying as agreed. The office help said it was just a "back-up" plan, it was in the judgement that they could do this (It was NOT) and didn't really mean anything. Any time you are asked to appear in court, and your employer is asked to appear in court is a big deal and does mean something. So I called the court clerk, hoping they knew something, and asked if they were allowed to do this. All I got was that this wasn't a "back-up" plan, we were being sued for garnishment and my husband needed to appear. Upon further investigation of the courts website I found that my husband could be arrested for not showing up. So, he left work loosing 19 hours of overtime pay, something we deperately needed as this has been a very slow winter. He also had to gas expenses for traveling the 600 miles since that is how far away he works. So we get to court today and speak with the lawyer. This lawyer did not know that we were current and paying as agreed. He assumed we weren't until I set him straight. Let me also note that when we first received the summons I immediately sent the lawyer a letter stating I didn't understand what he was doing, that we had paid, I had proof and he needed to immediatly make a motion to dismiss this or whatever. He ignored that communication also. So now we are sitting with this lawyer telling us that we don't need to go before the judge if we don't want to. He kept saying this was a contingency if we ever didn't pay, however isn't that what the agreed judgement was. Anyway, we were extrememly uspet and said we would wait to see the judge. After waiting an hour and a half we were told by this lawyer that the judge wasn't going to be in. He was a no show! He told us that if we wanted to we could reschedule for another day if we really wanted to go before the judge. Now since I can't choose the day, and I did ask, that meant another 2 days of lost wages. This lawyer also now says, after dragging us here, that he isn't going to request a new date becausde we are paying (DUH!). This motion will just be dead. Now I am irate. This never should have gone to court, he should have acknowledged my letter, and he should have withdrawn long before we had to lose our income. I want to know if I have legal grounds to sue this lawyer for the lost wages and gas? I don't want to get greedy, I just want the money that we should have gotten. My husband works to provide the basic necessities and we cannot afford such silliness. If this was so unimportant that he didn't feel the need to reschedule then we shouldn't have been there in the first place. I would have said this to the judge but as I said he was a no show. I do understand emergencies happen, judges get sick. I am not mad at the judge even if I was irritated then. I am definitly upset that this lawyer continues to ignore me (or at the very least has a negligent staff) and continues to sue me and I want to know if I have any recourse to recoup our lost income since I feel this was not only frivoulous but also went against the agreed judgement. Thank you so much for any real help you can give.
