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Foreign judgments (judgments issued by courts in other states then given to us to domesticate in Texas) are interesting work for us. That’s because the debtor is usually caught unaware once we start the process of domesticating the judgment.

We never cease to be amazed at the incompetence of most lenders.  We are frequently retained to stop a foreclosure in circumstances where the lender has been dealing with the borrower and then, despite accepting payments or has reached an agreement with the borrower, goes forward with foreclosure. But sometimes, it is much worse.

As you have probably guessed, we spend a significant amount of time representing people trying to collect a debt.  As part of that process we use a device known as a turnover order of the debtors assets.

We were hired by a wife that obtained a judgment against her ex-husband as part of the divorce.

Darrell Cook is the founder of our firm and when his father was alive his father would call and say “How’s business, son?” and Darrell would always say, “Business is good, Dad, people are still cheating one another.” They would both laugh and have the kind of conversations that fathers and sons have.

One of the debtors we obtained a judgment against owned an airplane that was an experimental aircraft and was apparently of great value.  The debtor parked the plane at his home in the country.  Apparently, he was unconcerned that we could do anything about the aircraft and so he just left it unattended in his yard.

What does it look like when you have go all the way through the eviction process and obtain a writ of possession so the sheriff can watch you put the tenant’s property out on the street.

Leo Durocher is often quoted as saying that “Nice guys finish last.” We are not certain that is true in all areas of life but we know it is true for landlords. The scenario is very often the same: The tenant obtains possession of the premises and then pays very little or nothing thereafter.

One of our clients, an equipment rental company, rented a backhoe to the defendant.

The defendant paid rent for a few weeks and then alleged that the backhoe had been stolen.  Of course, the rental agreement placed all responsibility for its theft on the defendant. So we filed suit.

We went to trial on Valentine’s Day 2006.  We represent a company I will just call Plaintiff.  They are in the business of selling produce and related products to restaurants in the D/FW area. There is a guy in town that is known as “Big Bruce.”  In 2004 BB was part owner (25%) of a restaurant in the area that bought produce from the Plaintiff.

When the client walked in the door, here was his situation.