Mullooly Jeffrey Rooney and Flynn Bank Restraint

Bank of America, one of the largest banks in the country let alone the world is a common consumer debt Plaintiff. Although not as aggressive as American Express or Discover Bank, they frequently pursue consumers through means of collection, litigation and post-judgment enforcement of debt. They sell debt frequently to debt-buyers like Unifund but we are starting to see them pursuing lawsuits as the original creditor against consumers more frequently than in the past. Bank of America primarily retains the debt collection law firm of Mullooly Jeffrey Rooney and Flynn to collect debt, sue consumers and conduct post-judgment enforcement in New York and New Jersey. Since default judgments are common, Mullooly frequently searches for bank accounts to levy or attempts to garnish consumer’s wages directly through their employer.

Our client learned that there was a default judgment against her when she learned that her bank account had been levied and over $10,000 had been frozen in her account. After a review of the court documents, we learned that the client had never been served and we continued to draft an Order to Show Cause to vacate the default judgment and lift the restraints against her. Although our client had not been properly served, Mullooly contacted us arguing that our client was in contact with them over the last year and was advised of the judgment against her. This issue would make it more difficult to meet the reasonable excuse requirement to have the judgment vacated against our client. However, we also realized that under New York’s Exempt Income Protection Act (EIPA), 90% of our client’s levied income from the last 60 days was exempt. That left Mullooly with a very low amount of levied funds. This issue forced Bank of America and Mullooly to agree to a settlement saving our client 60% off of the entire debt amount and Mullooly agreed to vacate the judgment against our client as a part of the settlement.