What is a Judgment?

• You can end up with a judgment filed against you if you are on the losing end of a court case. If a creditor files suit against you for non-payment of debt and you lose the lawsuit, the court will enter a judgment against you for the amount that you owe. The court can enter a default judgment, meaning you automatically lose your case, if you fail to appear in court or fail to respond to the lawsuit. Once a judgment is entered against you, your creditor has the right to garnish your wages or pursue other enforcement methods to collect on the outstanding debt.
  
  

The Automatic Stay

• Your first protection against a judgment begins as soon as you file bankruptcy. The automatic stay is an injunction forcing any and all of your creditors to discontinue any collection attempts against you. As a judgment is the very epitome of a collection action, since it literally collects money from you on a regular basis, the judgment must stop as soon as you begin bankruptcy proceedings. Only the judge or the conclusion of your bankruptcy case can remove the provisions of the automatic stay.
  
  

Does Bankruptcy Discharge a Judgment?

• The good news is that in most cases, a bankruptcy discharge will terminate any judgments against you. While the automatic stay protected you against the judgment for the duration of your case, the discharge will protect you for the rest of your life. The power of the discharge is so great that your former creditors cannot even contact you regarding your old debt, let alone attempt to enforce a judgment against you. However, in certain cases, the court will render your judgment non-dischargeable, meaning you will still have to honor the provisions of the judgment after your case. Typically, non-dischargeable judgments are social rather than financial in nature. For example, while you can generally discharge a judgment for non-payment of credit card debt, you usually cannot discharge a judgment for personal injury lawsuits, or in cases where you caused willful and malicious injury to someone.
  
  

Vacating A Judgment

• Although a bankruptcy discharge can stop a creditor from enforcing a judgment against you, it typically takes one more step in order to actually remove or "vacate" the judgment. Somehow, you must notify the court in which your creditor filed the judgment that you have received a bankruptcy discharge. For example, in the state of California you must file a "Notice of Motion to Vacate Judgment and Declaration (Small Claims)" with the court. A judge will hold a hearing and usually vacate the judgment automatically.