Lets make this simple by using a fictitious example of a judgment. We will say that Chris Creditor has won a civil judgment against Dan Deadbeat, Dan’s sister Debbie Deadbeat, and their business associate Sammy Scumbag. According to the judge’s decree, the judgment debtors now owe $60,000 to Chris Creditor.

Chris now can do his post judgment investigation on all three judgment debtors. He can identity and locate assets from all three of them. In the course of his investigation he may find that Dan Deadbeat has non-exempt assets sufficient to satisfy the entire judgment debt. With this information, Chris Creditor may decide to pursue enforcing his judgment exclusively against Dan Deadbeat and collect the whole $60,000 from Dan. If Chris chose to do this, he would not have to attempt any judgment enforcement against Debbie Deadbeat or Sammy Scumbag. Chris collects all of the judgment debt owed to him and he goes merrily on his way.

On the other hand, judgment investigation may have revealed that Dan did not have enough assets to pay the entire judgment debt. In this case, Chris may have elected to pursue assets owned by one or both of the other two debtors. Chris may have collected $30,000 from Debbie and $30,000 from Sammy. In this example Dan pays nothing, but Chris still legally collects his $60,000 and Chris is happy as a lark.

Chris might, in another example, have collected $10,000 from Dan, $20,000 from Debbie, and $30,000 from Sammy. Just as in the other examples, Chris gets paid and the judgment debt is satisfied.

Finally let’s suppose that Chris’s judgment investigation uncovers the fact that all the debtors have ample assets for paying the $60,000 judgment debt. Chris might enforce on all three debtors at the same time. This might result in enough judgment debtor assets being grabbed so that there is an excess above the $60,000 needed to satisfy Chris’s judgment. In this case Chris ends up with his $60,000, but the excess must be returned at once and prior to the mandatory Satisfaction of Judgment being filed.

You can see from these examples how it can be a real advantage when a judgment creditor is collecting from multiple judgment debtors on the same judgment. It is always a good thing in life to have multiple options for getting something accomplished!

You may also enjoy reading this previous article about successfully enforcing a judgment. Here’s the link: http://www.enforcementinstitute.com/?p=117

Happy enforcing!