Also known as: judgment debtors · judgement debtor · judgement debtors
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A person against whom a money judgment has been entered but not yet satisfied.
Jamal Jefferson, a partner in Jefferson Trust, faces an unsatisfied money judgment from a supplier. The supplier applies to court for a charging order against Jefferson's transferable interest. The court grants the order, creating a lien that requires the partnership to pay any future distributions directly to the supplier instead of to Jefferson until the judgment is paid.
June Jiang obtains a French judgment against James Johnson for unpaid goods. Johnson relocates assets to the United States. Jiang sues in U.S. court to enforce the judgment. The court treats Johnson as the judgment debtor and enters a new domestic judgment that permits collection proceedings against his U.S. property.
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Jada Jones obtains a large Texas judgment against Jarvis Aviation. Jones records an abstract of judgment in multiple Texas counties. The recording creates liens on all real property owned by Jarvis Aviation in those counties, allowing Jones to levy execution against the judgment debtor's assets to satisfy the award.
A judgment creditor may reach the judgment debtor's transferable interest in a partnership through a charging order that creates a lien and redirects distributions. The creditor may also record the judgment to create liens on the debtor's real property under state law and pursue execution or discovery under procedural rules.
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No. A judgment against the partnership is not itself a judgment against any partner. Creditors must obtain a separate judgment against the partner or satisfy statutory conditions such as the partnership's bankruptcy status before levying on the partner's personal assets.
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The charging order places a lien only on the judgment debtor's transferable interest and requires the partnership to pay distributions to the creditor. It does not give the creditor management rights or access to partnership records, and it remains the exclusive remedy for reaching that interest.
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Personal assets become reachable only after the creditor obtains a judgment against the partner individually and meets additional statutory conditions, such as an unsatisfied writ or the partnership's bankruptcy filing. A partnership judgment alone does not authorize direct execution against a partner's separate property.
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…rendered, is as applicable to a judgment proceeded on in such an action, as to any other, and forbids the allowance to the judgment debtor of a retrial of the original cause of action, as of right, in disregard of the obligation to pay arising on the judgment and of the rights acquired by the judgment creditor thereby. That…