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Don't Ignore Lawsuit Documents

When you are sued, the lawsuit documents are called a summons and a complaint. When you are served with a summons and complaint, you can either move to dismiss the complaint, or you have to serve an "answer" within 20 or 30 days of being served.

If you don't make a motion or serve an answer, a "default judgment" will be entered against you, which can mean that whatever relief the complaint was asking for, the plaintiff will get. This happens a lot in debt collector lawsuits. Debtors get sued, ignore the lawsuit documents, then wake up one day to find that their bank account has been frozen because the debt collector served a restraining notice on the debtor's bank.

Default judgments are often vacated because cases should proceed on their "merits". But in a recent case an appeals court refused to vacate a default for a pro se (she had no lawyer) plaintiff. The plaintiff was served by "leave and mail" service where the papers were left at the door of the plaintiff's home and were also mailed. The appeals court held that this was proper service and that the plaintiff had no reasonable excuse why she had not served an answer. She also tried to submit new evidence on a reply in her motion to vacate, which was not proper.

Two lessons from this case: (1) Don't ignore a lawsuit against you thinking nothing will happen; and (2) When you are sued, you need to hire a litigation lawyer because a good lawyer may have found a wrinkle to get the default vacated.

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