Hello everyone I just signed for some court papers from the District Court in my county saying a clomplaint has been filed against me for medical collections. All of them had been at a local collection agency for some time. 1 is from 1999 and 3 are from 2002. I am asking help in giving me guidenance on what to do. The papers say I have 20 days to prepare a defense or a default judgement will be granted for the total amount due. Can anyone give me some advice? I assume I have 20 days from today to prepare a response. The totoal is less than 700 Thanks baggs
Help is on the way. 1: Call the doctor and see if you can make peace, then have the doctor call off the dogs. There is a probablity taht whatever peace you make will have to be secured with a "Confession of Judgement", meaning if you default on teh agreement the doctor's attorney can just enter the judgement and go after your assets. 2: If that fails, file a General Denial with the clerk of the Court. Also, start looking for reasons to countersue the doctor. maybe he left a sponge in you, or the suture scar is crooked - find some reason to make them want to settle with you. 3: After you have filed your General Denial, demand a Bill of Particulars. Then demand interrogatories. Then demand a pre-trial discovery proceeding. The more pre-trial machinations you can come up with, the higher the doctor's legal bills and the less the doctor will recover even if he does win in court. The reason for this is to drive the legal bills so high the other side will want to settle ust to cut their losses.
Thanks for the response. I am reaseaching on how to answer a summons. Got some excellent advice on that. Would it be bad for me to ask for validation at this point to the lawyer whose address is on the summons? Or should I just answer the summons as not mine and wait. Just wondering. baggs
