Judge Tied to Collection Agency Overruled in Collection Case

A recent case in Spokane, Washington, appears to be highlighting some unsavory conflicts of interest between a judge and a local collection agency.

District Court Judge Sara B. Derr ruled in favor of Automated Accounts against Betty Winfrey. Winfrey, who had let a grandchild use her home address as a mailing address, started receiving collection notices in the mail. Winfrey ignored them; the collection notices were for a towing bill on a car that Winfrey neither owned nor used.

In court, Winfrey provided documents that proved that she was in no way connected to the car in question. Judge Derr even agreed that Winfrey’s documents proved her case. But then, in an odd sort of Bizzaro World justice, Judge Derr still ruled in favor of the collection agency, claiming that Winfrey could have been more proactive in proving that she was incorrectly listed as the registered owner of the car. "I’m basically looking at what was done," Derr said at the trial. "I don’t believe that Ms. Winfrey took sufficient action to rebut" the presumption that she owned the car.

Some things it might be interesting to know about Judge Derr:

Derr worked for Aetna Adjustment, a collection agency, before being elected as judge back in 2004 Derr worked for more than a decade in the same law office as Jack R. Reeves, who filed the suit against Winfrey on behalf of Automated Accounts.

Neither, of course, should have any bearing at all on Derr as a judge. However, she kept these potential conflicts out of the court record.

Judge Derr noted that Reeves’ collection agency would not be able to recoup the money from the towing bill if she ruled in Winfrey’s favor. Which seems to set up a disturbing precedent; it doesn’t matter who pays the debt, so long as the debt gets paid.

Judge Derr’s ruling was later appealed, and reversed.

Derr continues to dispute any suggestion that her association with Reeves or her work with a collection agency prior to becoming a judge had anything to do with her ruling. Derr says she simply followed the technical requirements of the law even though she felt bad for Winfrey.

"I do not always rule in favor of a collection company or landlord or whoever," Derr told the Spokesman Review. "I follow my oath. I take it seriously. And I have no bias to that collection company or any collection company."