High Court Garnishment Ruling Favors Poor Blacks and Whites

    3G 
Serene ey 

President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 
PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel 

egal efense lund Jack Greenberg 
Director, Public Relations 

‘ NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

25 

FOR RELEASE 
WEDNLSPAY 

June ls, 1969 

HIGH COURT GARNISHMENT RULING 
FAVORS POOR BLACKS AND WiiTTES 

Legal Defense Fund Makes Major Breakthrough 

Every year between 100,000 and 300,000 American workers are 
fired from their jobs as a result of wage garnishment. The great 
majority of them are those whose jobs stand between themselves and 
starvation--the poor, both black and white. 

This week there came a crucial turning point in alleviating 
this problem when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employees are 
entitled to a court hearing and that creditors must prove the exis- 
tence of a legitimate debt before they can garnishee a paycheck. 

The High Court handed down the ruling in response to an appeal 
of a consumer protection case brought by the NAACP Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund, Inc. 

The appellant was Christine Sniadach, a $65-a-week white employee 
of an instrument company in Milwaukee. 

A finance company contended that Mrs. Sniadach owed $420 and 
garnisheed her pay without giving her a chance to prove in court that 
she didn't owe them any money or that she had a defense (such as 
fraud) to their suit. 

This week's Supreme Court ruling outlaws Wisconsin's garnishment 
law, as well as garnishment laws in at least 16 other states where 
checks can be levied without prior court hearing. 

These states include Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, 
Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, 
Rhode Isiand, Utah, Veriront, Washington and Wyoming. A total of 41 
states have some form of garnishment law. 

According to the President's Committee on Consumer Protection, 
3 with large concentrations of blacks and poor whites 

generally have the toughest garnishment laws; Virginia, Michigan, 
Ohio and California, for example. 

In hearings held by the Consumer Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs 
in 1967, it was pointed out that in a vast number of garnishment cases 
the debt is "a fraudulent one, saddled on a poor, ignorant person who 
is trapped in an easy credit nightmare in which he is charged double 
for something he could not pay for even if the proper price was called 
for..." 

Added to an impecunious debtor's troubles is the fact that in 
most instances he stands to lose his job because of garnishment. 
Recent studies have shown that 13 percent of American manufacturers 
fire workers even after one garnishment. 

According to a study done in Wisconsin, 41 percent of the em- 
ployees in a sample taken were warned cf dismissal after one garnish- 
ment and 11 percent were fired immediately. Only in a very small 
percentage of cases did employers try to help the workers. 

Legal Defense Fund Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, who argued 
on behalf of Mrs. Sniadach, said the High Court's decision indicates 
that it intends to strike down those obsolete legal rules of consumer 
credit which victimize buyers and borrowers rather than serve them. 

Mr. Greenberg said the decision will void a quarter million pres- 
ently outstanding wage garnishments. Perhaps more important, he said, 
the decision demonstrates that the court is concerned with the rights 
of consumers. 

He said the Legal Defense Fund will therefore be bringing other 
test cases in the consumer field to the attention of the courts. 

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