What is a judgment in personal finance?

Answer 1

When a person is taken to civil court (for example, a credit card company suing a cardholder to get paid back), the court makes a judgment for or against the plaintiff (entity initiating the lawsuit, in this example, the credit card company).

If the judgment is for the plaintiff, the result is effectively a judgment against the defendant (the person taken to court in the example). Part of the judgment is the amount that is to be paid to the entity winning the court case (judgment).

Judgements against a borrower (and the amount set to be paid by that borrower) will make their way onto the credit report and will cause a drop in credit score.