Nextgear and AFC updates in Covid Time

We continue to handle a lot of floorplan defense lawsuits, defending dealers sued by Nextgear and AFC.  They are still filing new cases even though the court systems have been slowed by COVID-19.  In general, our perception is that Nextgear has been willing to work with us in recognizing the new reality of Covid-affected dealers.  AFC has been much more difficult. 

Body Attachments for Contempt of Court in Indiana, Some Welcome Changes

For years, Indiana has been a center for injustice regarding the issuance of body attachments for unpaid civil judgments.  A body attachment is basically an arrest. Technically, it is not for failure to pay the judgment, rather, it is for contempt of court for failing to attend a proceeding supplemental to judgment to give information to the plaintiff for purposes of collecting the judgment. That being said there are a number of legitimate reasons why a person might not attend a proceeding supplemental. The most common is they never know about the proceeding supplemental in the first place. Other reasons might be lack of child care, lack of transportation, inability to read and understand the legal pleadings, illness or general incompetence. 

Both federal and state law prohibits imprisonment for debt. Section 22 of the Indiana Constitution provides as follows:

Section 22. Debts--Imprisonment exemption

Section 22. The privilege of the debtor to enjoy the necessary comforts of life, shall be recognized by wholesome laws, exempting a reasonable amount of property from seizure or sale, for the payment of any debt or liability hereafter contracted: and there shall be no imprisonment for debt, except in case of fraud.

For at least as long as I've been an attorney, 33 years and counting, courts have issued body attachments in the form of a bench warrant, an arrest warrant. . It has worked differently in different counties, but if a law enforcement officer seizes the person, the law enforcement officer is supposed to take the person to the court, for questioning about why the person did not attend the proceeding supplemental.  On many occasions the person was seized and the court was not in session, so the person had to stay in jail over a weekend, sometimes an extended holiday weekend. 

In recent years there has been some attention in the press to the issue of poor people spending time in jail because they can't pay civil judgments, and it looks like it is finally starting to pay dividends in court rules. Today I was reading Delaware County's local rules in preparation for a case, and I found out that they recently adopted rules greatly reducing the power to issue a bench warrant on a civil judgment.  Essentially the defendant has to prove actual notice and if the warrant is issued, it must be done during court hours and the defendant is taken directly to the court. 

If you are subjected to a body attachment relating to a civil judgment in Indiana, we will talk to you and look into your claim at no charge.  Often plaintiffs and their attorneys make mistakes in the process, and these mistakes could give you the opportunity to collect damages in a lawsuit.  Please call us at 317-662-4529 if you have any questions.  

Lenovo Flex-14 screen flickeringI

Late last year my main Lenovo laptop had to go in the shop. To get me by while it was out of service I bought a smaller, lighter, cheaper computer, a Lenovo Flex-14 "2 in 1". It was under $550, and I've generally been happy with it, but it has an occasional screen flickering. The screen will momentarily go black.  In my family, we have had Dell, Samsung, Asus and Lenovo Computers knocked out over screen issues, so I googled to see if this was a big problem with the Flex 14, and googling "Flex 14" and "flickering" yields 403,000 hits. 

Based on the hassles of backing up, packaging and shipping my other Lenovo machine twice for warranty repair, right now I don't think the problem is sufficiently bad enough to send back my computer.  I'm keeping an eye on it.

I don't have an intention of filing a lawsuit against Lenovo or even taking on one as a lawyer. To assist folks that might need to file one, I found this lawsuit against Lenovo for a claimed screen defect in the Flex 5 from 2017.  Here is the link.  https://www.classaction.org/media/gisairo-v-lenovo-united-states-inc.pdf.  This isn't my case. I have nothing to do with it.  For more information, contact the lawyer on the complaint. 

(For the Apple fanboys out there. We have had a number of Macbook Pros and Macbook Airs over the years, and most of our problems with those machines have been limited to bad external power supplies and cords to the power supplies.  Well, that and a Macbook Pro 13 would cost about three times what I paid for the Lenovo Flex 14.)