By Steve Gordon
I started writing this a couple weeks ago and didn’t finish it and then it became neglected. Sorry.
A big pinch of reality tweeked me today. If you have followed this blog you know that my situation is that of having lost basically everything in divorce, I owning nothing, I am coming out of prison at 64-years-old, I don’t have a job, and ...you get the idea.
Lost in between the cracks is the fact that my ex-wife, Patricia Gordon, holds a $500,000.00 (yes, a 1/2 million dollars) personal injury judgment on me. This is even after I turned over basically all of my claim to marital property to her in the divorce settlement in 2003 while I was in prison.
On a bigger scale however it becomes an issue because now it involves the family. Here is/was her mindset. In answering derogatories (a list of questions for the court) for the divorce she put down in her own handwriting that she thought she should get “everything” in regard to the marital property. Well, she pretty much did.
Here is the kicker. All of our marital property together didn’t add up to ½ million dollars.
Trying to figure out the logic of going through the motions on the civil action is fruitless. It is likely she went in the hole financially to pay the attorney for paperwork, research, phone calls, letters, consultations, and time in court. That part wasn’t my fault. No matter, this judgment can (will?) be held over me for the rest of my life. The thing is there is nothing to get.
Those are the facts.
This is becoming an issue now for my parents planning for the family estate because obviously I can’t inherit anything. Some think this was her plan. You know, an attempt to get whatever I might inherit or at best keeping me from having anything.
As you know my situation is that I live at home, collect food stamps, don’t have measurable savings or a job, and have only some Social Security as income. With the stoppage of a couple heartbeats I potentially become another of America’s homeless veterans living in a refrigerator box under a bridge somewhere. My income is below the poverty level and definitely not enough comes from SSA to rent an apartment.
I understand laws are written to protect people, but people take advantage of the law and sometimes courts get it wrong. We are a litigious society. Bankruptcy was suggested as a remote possibility, but I do not owe anyone anything except for the judgment. However the judgment is bankruptcy proof.
There are provisions in bankruptcy for support and alimony where if the debtor can show extreme hardship on him or her and that the party being owed is not in dire need that it is taken into consideration.
Here I am trying to reestablish a good credit rating and yet I can’t own anything. I have a couple credit cards that I use and then pay the balance off each month so as not to accumulate interest.
The car I was driving before it died was a 14 year old vehicle owned by my brother. It was the only thing I saved from the marriage. Pat had two other cars at the time of the divorce and asked for the Blazer as well but was denied. At least the Master for divorce used common sense with that.
She could, and some think she will, come running waving the judgement around when I find a job. A bankruptcy lawyer (here I thought I was finished with lawyers when I got out of prison) said he thought that wages would not be liable but he didn’t give me a definite answer on a free advice phone call. He did say that if I bought a car she might be able to take it. Great, if I get a job (we know it won't be at Applebees) I won’t be able to get to it.
OK, I am done venting. I wish I could get someones attention who could do something to correct inequities in things but as usual, ex-offenders are afforded little standing in society. Then “they” wonder why the prisons are so full and why people go back to prison.
I don’t know. DUH
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