Yale-New Haven
[from a 2003 WSJ article] Tough Tactic
The legal tactic of arresting a debtor who fails to appear for a
court hearing — known in some areas as “body attachment” — is so
extreme that some of the country’s biggest commercial creditors say
they never use it. For instance, Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Ford Motor
Credit Co., the finance arm of Ford Motor Co., say they expressly
prohibit their collections agents from asking judges to issue arrest
warrants against no-show debtors.
In many areas of the country, collections lawyers say, the procedure
has been all but abandoned. Judges grant a creditor’s request for a
body attachment when someone misses one or more hearings or otherwise
flouts a court’s authority — technically, it’s not punishment for
the debt itself.
In Connecticut, the state’s largest hospital, Yale-New Haven, has
obtained at least 65 civil arrest warrants in the past three years
for debtors who have missed court hearings, according to an
examination of New Haven County court records by a researcher for the
Service Employees International Union, which represents some hospital
workers. After several inquiries from the Journal, the hospital,
which doesn’t dispute the union’s research, said it would severely
limit the tactic.