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A comment on US Marshals arresting people for not paying their federal student loans. Parent comment

Re:US Marshals arresting people for not paying their federal... by fiatmoney on Tuesday February 16, 2016 @12:33PM (#11111547)
Bankruptcy can reduce or restructure the actual debt, but that doesn't affect court orders of limited payment towards a debt - they're separate issues (bankruptcy I suppose voids previous orders of payment, but discharagability doesn't affect the court's order of payment).

It's extremely common for someone to owe a very large, possibly non-dischargable debt (as a result of a criminal fine, lawsuit, alimony, child support, etc), and the court order is something to the effect of "pay $100 / mo", even if this would never actually pay off the debt.

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Re:US Marshals arresting people for not paying their federal... by Lawtonfogle on Tuesday February 16, 2016 @03:20PM (#11112848)
It is also possible for the ordered payment to be too high to be able to be paid, such as in the case when someone lost a well paying job during a recession but the other party's lawyer argues that they are taking a reduced wage job so they don't have to pay in full. While such cases may be rare, they still signify a problem in our legal system.
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Re:US Marshals arresting people for not paying their federal... by cuckcuckspruce on Tuesday February 16, 2016 @05:31PM (#11113652)
The most prominent case that I can think of is Dave Foley's run in with Canadian family court law[1].

[1] http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2011/03/11/c...

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