Failure to appear

If you're going to send something to the court is should be a motion for a continuance which will give you time to get your defense together. Find a template for one online and then have a paralegal review it. You cannot get around legal procedure with a letter. Ignorance is not a defense. Do not disobey an order to appear. It will make things worse.

Wish I could be helpful with your actual issue.

 

No.

You can sue anybody you want to any time but trying to sue for improper service is simply barking up the wrong tree most of the time. So is trying to vacate the judgment after it has been awarded. There are several people on the net trying to claim they can teach you how to get judgment vacated. I know almost every one of them and some on a personal level. Not one has ever had much success at it. There are reasons why it is a good idea to file motion to vacate void judgment but it has to be a small part of a larger strategy. Trying to get a judgment vacated probably has a success rate of about 1 in a thousand if that. Bad service is usually much less successful. Every case is different so I can only speak in general terms. You might have a good case. For instance, I know a man named Percy in Long Island, NY who owns a garage. He is a mechanic. He is closed on Saturday and Sunday. He was served on Saturday and he tried to argue improper service. Got the process server on the witness chair. The process server described the property where he served Percy. Percy showed the court a picture of his property. It wasn't even close but for some reason the judge still ruled against him.

I know another man named Robbie who lives in Rochester, NY. Somehow he proved that the process server had filed return of service on 4 different people within 1 hour's time in the dead of winter. Those 4 people lived as much as 200 miles apart. He got his case vacated based on the evidence he had.

So each case can be different. So what reason do you have to think you might have some luck getting yours vacated?

Of course they didn't include the original contract you signed with Cap1. Not on a credit card case they didn't. But did you demand it and how did you demand it? Did you just tell the judge they don't have a contract nor a copy of it or did you demand it through the proper use of discovery? Most judges will grant their demand for judgment even if they have no proof of any kind. They normally don't need to produce a contract or agreement, don't need to produce any statements or accounting of any kind, don't need to have an affidavit on file and don't need to have a live witness to testify that the defendant owes the money. They still get a judgment with no problem.

A defendant who uses discovery tools in the right way have a much better chance. Most defendants and lawyers who know about discovery tools send interrogatories, demand for admissions and production of documents all at the same time. The plaintiff's attorney responds with answers that are of no help at all. They never get any useful information back. Defendants who send a demand for admissions first then send demand for documents when the responses come back have a much better chance of getting somewhere. They can demand documents based on the answers they get back if their questions were properly formulated. Getting those questions formulated is the tricky part. If the plaintiff's lawyer don't answer the questions properly and produce the demanded documents then the defendant can motion the court to compel them to produce the documents. Even then the court might not go along with the defendant's demands unless the defendant knows how to force the court to do so. That can be done too. People who know how to do those things have had to learn it the hard way by losing a great many cases and learning from experience because they sure don't learn how to do it in law schools.

Very few win in local courts but those who learn how to take it to federal court and have the proof that the plaintiff or the plaintiff's lawyer have violated FDCPA or FCRA win almost every time. If I were to get sued in local court I would go into it expecting to lose for the simple reason that if I got sued in local court it would be because I actually did owe the money and I would have no defense against that unless maybe they waited too long to file the case. If I could win at all I would have to take it to federal court.

 

That may be about as good as you can do all things considered.

That might not be a great idea. Better just tell them you have no assets. They aren't likely to ask you any questions at all other than whether or not you owe the debt if you do go. Questions about assets will likely come at a later time in another hearing or they will send you a question sheet demanding to know about your assets. If you get a letter demanding that you reveal your assets let me know and I will tell you how I would answer their questions. I can guarantee they won't like the answers I would give them but there would be absolutely nothing they can do about it.since you are on a pension.

Just remember that while they can ask all the questions they want they can't actually even threaten to garnish your pension money let alone move to take it.