Of course the headline has it wrong: They’re going to jail for contempt for disobeying an order to appear in court.
That said, ordering a debtor to appear in court every other month to swear he is too poor to pay the debt seems pretty bizarre, and I’ve never heard about anything like this in any other jurisdiction. Like pretty much every news article discussing legal issues, this article is so thin on details it is impossible to figure out exactly what is being described. Have they just been sued on the debt or is there already a judgment against them? Is there some statute or rule in Kansas authorizing these “debt collection days”? If they’re insolvent, why don’t any of these debtors file for bankruptcy? Or, if they have non-exempt assets that they wouldn’t want to lose in bankruptcy, why don’t the creditors simply have the sheriff levy on those assets like any other judgment creditor?
Conducting a brief search of Kansas law, I can’t find anything in Kansas law that authorizes something like this. The only reference I can find to an oath of poverty is the same sort of “pauper’s oath” most states allow a plaintiff to file in lieu of paying filing fees. The only scenario I can think of where that would come into play is that the creditor sued the debtors in small claims court and won, and then the debtors filed an appeal to the district court and a “pauper’s oath” affidavit to avoid paying the filing fee, and the judge is ordering them in every month to re-affirm that oath for some reason. But if that’s the case, why wouldn’t the judge just dismiss the appeal rather than hold them in contempt? And what kind of trial judge has enough time on his hands to hold a “debt collection” cattle call docket every month?
If there’s someone knowledgeable about Kansas law who can explain this, I’d be interested.
Probably the “judge” has no clue about Kansas law other than what he has been told by the sleazebag. None of the defendants have enough money to contest any of this crap to a higher authority. It’s abuse of the system, pure and simple. Wouldn’t surprise me if the “judge” was on the take.