by Structured Settlement Watchdog
Recent Appellate decisions in the Tomahawk and Ramos cases in Fresno County California represent a victory of sorts for J.G. Wentworth, in that California is not sinking into the sea as feared.
Patrick Hindert ruins his own commentary on the subject in his presentation of "The Bigger Picture"
Hindert's "Bigger Picture"
- Final results for the Fresno County factoring cases are still to be determined. TRUE
- The primary and secondary structured settlement markets both face unprecedented challenges. TRUE
- Primary market challenges:
- IRC section 468B Qualified Settlement Funds (QSFs);
- The secondary market defined by IRC section 5891 and the state protection statutes;
- Successfully integrating structured settlement laws, processes and documentation with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid;
- Surviving the current financial crisis without annuity provider insolvencies and/or payment defaults.
- Hindert continues to try and milk IRC 5891 like a growing child unwilling to let go of its mother's teat when there's no more milk. The words "secondary market" do not appear anywhere in the text of Internal Revenue Code Section 5891. "The secondary market" is not defined by IRC 5891. The secondary market is merely "defined" in the "imagination" of the fabricators of the term and their ability to convince others that this term is appropriate to describe the generally unlicensed cohort of companies and individuals that populate this "market".
- QSF's are not a challenge to the "primary market". Ultimately responsible practioners will use the settlement tool responsibly as opposed to the universal elixir that Hindert suggests in prior posts.
- The latter two points are valid.
- Further Comments
- Amid these challenges, Hindert opines that "the Tomahawk and Ramos cases represent important and timely industry victories". Why are Tomahawk and Ramos important and timely victories for the structured settlement industry?
- These are factoring industry victories, not structured settlement industry victories. Yet despite the result of the appeals it is clear that the lower Courts in the Fresno cases had some issues with the behavior of J.G. Wentworth/Henderson. That's a gauge of common feeling. Just because one California Superior Court judge cannot overturn another California Superior Court judge's decision, it DOES NOT mean that the same judge cannot rule against JG Wentworth/Henderson before their own Court where there hasn't been another decision.
- Why no discussion of fraudulent cash now advertising?
For the factoring groupies now firing their Kalashnikovs and AK-47s in the air I'll leave you with this courtesy of one of our legal resources:
"[A] court may set aside a void order at any time. An appeal will not prevent the court from at any time lopping off what has been termed a dead limb on the judicial tree -- a void order." Lovret v. Seyfarth (1972) 22 Cal. App. 3d 841, 854. "It is the settled law of California that a judgment or order which is void on its face, because its infirmity is determinable from an inspection of the judgment roll or the record, may be set aside on motion at any time after its entry by the court=2 0which rendered the judgment or made the order." (Id.)
“Such a void order may be set aside on the court's motion and by a judge, other than the one who made it.” Andrisani v. Saugus Colony (1992) 8 Cal. App. 4th 517, 523
Comments and Trackback Policy