Our client was sued by First Select Corporation, a debt buyer in 1999 through their attorneys, Forster & Garbus and a default judgment was entered against him. They were not able to enforce the judgment against him and eventually sold the debt again to Credigy Receivables Inc., another debt buyer and Todd Houslanger & Associates took over at this point as the attorneys from Forster & Garbus. Our client had no knowledge of this judgment because he was incarcerated until 2001 and shortly thereafter moved to Georgia where he resided until a few years ago when he relocated back to New York. As soon as he moved back, his bank account was frozen by Houslanger and the amount that he allegedly owed was stated to be about $9,000.
We contacted Todd Houslanger to demand that he vacate the judgment against our client as he knew that we would file a motion to vacate under CPLR 317 and 5015. We explained that he would have a difficult time proving that his client acquired this debt properly and would not be able to show the chain-of-title and proper assignment paperwork. We also had a great hearsay argument as it would be highly unlikely that representatives of each company would be able to appear and testify to the sale and assignment of this debt. To save our client money and prevent further litigation, an out of court settlement was reached for $2,000 reducing the alleged debt by almost 80%.