Laura Owens

The whole time, Laura still owed Clayton nearly $200,000 for attorney's fees.

That was by order of the Family Trial Court, the Arizona Court of Appeals, and the Arizona Supreme Court.

As time passes, that number is collecting interest.

I asked Greg Woodnick what usually happens in situations like these.

Essentially, that's an order that gets sent to someone's employer, Taco Bell, whoever they're working for, and that employer, before they issue a paycheck to Laura, would take part of that paycheck, and it would essentially get routed to the judgment creditor, in this case, Clayton.

This is where we need to get technical.

Because of the money Laura owed Clayton, Greg Woodnick scheduled something called a judgment debtors exam.

It's basically a deposition, but all related to Laura's finances.

I asked Woodnick to explain how judgment debtors exams usually work.

You're looking for assets or things that you can collect via the judgment.

Maybe someone has a boat or a car or something that is not excluded from collection that you could, in theory, use to pay the debt of the debtor.

In this case, Laura owed Clayton money.

Woodnick planned to ask Laura about her assets, like property, cars, horses, even LLCs.

On the eve of the judgment debtor's exam in Maricopa County Superior Court, we received notice that she had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Chapter 7 is basically a fast-track bankruptcy.

Think of it like a request for a fresh start.

If it's granted, you might lose some non-essential assets, but your debt is wiped out and you have a badly bruised credit score.

As soon as Laura filed for bankruptcy, all debt collection proceedings halted.

Before they could resume, Laura would have to appear in federal court for bankruptcy.

My team was pretty disappointed when she filed the Chapter 7 bankruptcy.