Legal Question in Product Liability in Missouri

Re: If a Taiwan company is sued in missouri how can the court collect damages?

It might be hard to collect. But if the Taiwan company is owed money by people it sells to, those accounts receivable can be attached.

Richard E. McLeod

McLeod Nash & Franciskato

1100 Main St., Suite 2900

Kansas City, MO 64105

(816) 421-5656

FAX (816) 421-3339

[email protected]

Re: If a Taiwan company is sued in missouri how can the court collect damages?

Courts do not collect damages, people collect damages and attorneys collect damages. All the court does is issue an order or judgment. Then comes the need to collect on the judgment. There is an entire industry that specializes in collecting on judgments. The first task is to locate some assets of the Taiwanese company that are in a jurisdiction that will enforce the judgment. Assets can take various forms, the most likely being inventory located somewhere, warehouse facilities, goods in transit, bank accounts, property, accounts receivables, etc. If the Taiwanese company does much continuing business in the USA, a collection lawyer can generally recover against them. The judgment, however, must be big enough to be worth the trouble. A $100 judgment will probably be uncollectible because it would take more than $100 to collect it, unless a large group of such judgments were involved (such as in a class action). A $100,000 judgment, however, is worth lots of effort. Most reputable foreign companies will not want the adverse publicity of an unsatisfied judgment against them, so media publicity of the judgment often helps in collection.

So, collection is often possible against foreign companies.