Masson’s Inverse Law of Judgments

A story in today’s Lafayette Journal & Courier raises a principle I’ll call “Masson’s Inverse Law of Judgments.” (Never mind that I probably picked it up from an older, wiser lawyer years ago.)

It goes something like this: “The difficulty of obtaining a judgment is inversely proportional to the difficulty of collecting on the judgment.”

The story in the Journal & Courier has to do with a $157 Million default judgment obtained by jury trial. That is an oddity on a number of levels. First, it is rare that a jury is called in to make any default decisions. Typically, in default situations, a plaintiff will be entitled to a finding that the defendant is liable by operation of law and then will have to put forth some prima facie evidence of damages. The damage determination will be made by a judge, usually without a lot of in depth scrutiny. If it passes the laugh test, the judge will usually grant the default judgment. Second, it’s a whopping big judgment. The article suggests that, after some review, nobody can point to a bigger wrongful death claim. (The suit alleged that a tree stand malfunctioned, causing the death of a man while hunting.)

So, now, having obtained a large, relatively easy judgment, plaintiff will have to go looking for assets. That will be the tough part. If they find any pockets, the people attached to those pockets will likely attempt to set aside the default judgment which, while depending on the circumstances, is achievable — more so, probably, when the court looking at the motion to set aside sees that the person is looking at such a huge judgment.