The Volokh Conspiracy
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Libel, College Students, and Garnished Wages: Even Entry-Level Workers Aren't "Judgment-Proof"
I wrote last November about a libel verdict in Cody v. Dirir, a lawsuit between two college students. To quickly excerpt the facts, from the court's opinion:
On October 12, 2022 [likely should say 2019 -EV], the plaintiff and the defendant were students at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut (University). They did not know each other until October 12, 2022 [likely should say 2019 -EV], when the defendant attended a party at a home of a fraternity that the plaintiff was a member of and where he resided. During the party, the defendant believed that she was called a nigger (N-word) by another member of the fraternity, Frank V., a black male. When the defendant told the plaintiff, a white male, that Frank called her the N-word, the plaintiff tried to convince her that Frank would never say that and if he did, he did not intend it in a negative way as he used the N-word with an "a" at the end of the word and not with an "er" at the end of the word. Frank used the N-word in the defendant's presence, and she believed the word was directed to her.
The defendant was upset by this exchange at the party, and after the defendant left the party, she reported this encounter to her cousin, … Ellie …. With the defendant's assistance of providing a picture of the plaintiff and Frank, Ellie posted on her Twitter page the picture of Frank and the plaintiff with the following statement: "These two called my little cousin a nigga and continued to belittle her infront of their white friends at a UConn frat party. If anyone knows their names, please let me know. And tell them keep that energy." The statement with the picture (also referred to as "post" or "tweet") was seen initially by approximately 700 to 1000 people who are the cousin's Twitter followers. Those followers then forwarded the post/tweet to their Twitter followers, resulting in approximately 5000 or more people viewing the post.
The statement, plaintiff argued, was false, badly damaged his reputation, and distressed him. (For more details, see the longer excerpt here.) And the judge ultimately agreed, concluding (to oversimplify) that the statement was false and highly distressing. Because of this, the judge awarded $10K in compensatory damages to plaintiff, and left open the possibility of punitive damages. In May 2024, the judge indeed awarded $26K in punitive damages, reflecting 3/4 of the plaintiff's attorney fees (since plaintiff had prevailed on the most significant part of his claims but not all his claims).
Defendant thus owed $36K, and plaintiff moved to garnish defendant's wages, which is to say to have the judgment paid off (slowly) out of defendant's paycheck. Here's what happened, according to Judge Matthew Wax-Krell's order issued last week:
On May 16, 2024, the plaintiff filed a motion for an order of "nominal" installment payments…. The court granted the motion and ordered weekly payments of $35 beginning July 3, 2024.
The defendant failed to make the payments, and the plaintiff applied for a wage execution, which was issued by the court on July 24, 2024…. Although her attorney stated that $700 was being removed from each biweekly paycheck [under the execution], plaintiff's attorney stated that the amount being removed was $592, with $514 of that going to the plaintiff, and the remainder going to the marshal for his statutorily authorized fee.
The defendant seeks a modification on the basis that losing 25% of her paycheck is not financially feasible for her given her additional debts (including hospital bills and student loan payments of $700 per month). She also claims that going from paying $35 per week to $592 every two weeks is a large increase. Notably, the wage execution was only necessary because she failed to make the weekly $35 payments. She seeks to have the waged execution modified back to the $35 per week that was originally ordered.
The plaintiff opposes any modification of the statutory amount of the execution, which can be up to 25% of her disposable earnings. The plaintiff argues that the $35 per week is a "measly" payment that will take the defendant more than 20 years to pay off, however plaintiff had not moved to increase the $35 weekly payment order since it was entered on June 5, 2024. Plaintiff further argues that the defendant has not proven her financial inability to pay the $592 per paycheck and that the judgment should take priority over her other obligations.
Taking into account the judgment obtained by the plaintiff and the defendant's other financial obligations, the court modifies the wage execution to be $75 per week, commencing September 30, 2024.
So the defendant is having to pay about $4K per year, to pay off the $36K judgment. That's not a lot for a typical court case; this isn't the $36M that the presumably solvent Oberlin College had to pay in a libel case. And if plaintiff Cody had paid his lawyer up front, he will likely be in the red on that business proposition for many years to come.
But the $36K, and the $4K/year, is probably a considerable cost to the defendant, who appears to be a freshly minted registered nurse. Might it might feel to her roughly the way the $36M felt to Oberlin College officials (who after all didn't have to pay the amount, roughly 3.5% of the College's endowment, out of their own pockets)? If plaintiff wanted defendant to feel some of the pain that the defamatory statements caused him to feel—to be sure, just speculation on my part—plaintiff is likely succeeding in that.
And more broadly, this is a reminder: If you commit a tort against someone, your being a college student with no assets and no or little current income might well deter that person from suing you. But maybe the person will still sue, whether because he or his family has the money to spend, or because a lawyer is willing to help him. (I can't speak to this case, but in some cases the lawyer might have ideological reasons for participating, or might be a friend of the family and thus be willing to help.) And you might indeed end up having to pay money that's small by litigation standards, but a large chunk of whatever income you make as a young worker.
