Responded to summons, now what?

You cannot represent your Mother. Sun Ethics in Florida is very strict about the unauthorized practice of law and if you push this issue further, they will come after you.

That said, why doesn't she simply file for Chapter 7? Seems she's facing an uphill battle here. A Motion to Stay Proceeding Under Suggestion of Bankruptcy may even work for a while.

 

As Apex pointed out you should not have done that and you could end up in jail if you continue to do so. But that does not mean you cannot help her by preparing the proper paper work, she signs it and if asked who is helping her she can simply say she got her information off the internet. Not much they can do about that except maybe try to coerce her into getting a attorney. If they try that then she could logically ask the judge for extra time to seek competent counsel which of course when her time is up she can have a bit of fun by telling the court that after due diligence by looking through all the attorney listings in the yellow pages and asking all her friends if they knew of any competent lawyers and she has been unsuccessful in finding such a creature. At that time she might even as the court to appoint her a competent counsel at their expense.

Of course that idea would fly about as well as any old lead ballon. (LOL) So she asks for more time and they probably won't give her that either. Then she can start hollering about how the judges and the courts are all so unfair and that ought to get her some more brownie points too. (LOL)

Now then, on a more serious note, they really can't force her to get an attorney and maybe she might get more time within which time you can learn more about how to help her. The bitter truth is that she will probably lose and get a judgment against her even if she had an attorney, be s/he competent or otherwise. The problem is that she owes the money and everybody in the court either knows that or firmly believes it. Not much an attorney can do to change that fact that I know of but because the facts are what they are I can't see advocating that someone throw good money after bad.

On the other hand I can't see just giving up either. I'm likely to get sued myself sooner or later in the not too distant future. I'm watching the court web site like a hawk and as soon as a case shows up I'll file my response to the court, (notice I said response and not answer. There is a vast difference between the two.), file it with the court clerk and send a copy of my response, my demand for admissions and a certificate of mailing to the plaintiff's attorney by certified mail return receipt requested. If the fact of their filing shows up by noon or so I'll file it that same day. If it don't show up until after the clerk's office closes for the day I'll still get the lawyer's packet in the mail and file the response next day. The sheriff can just take his sweet time serving me. I don't care. Now the attorney is behind the 8 ball and not me. He has to answer my demand for admissions within 30 days or I'll file a motion to deem admitted on about half or less of my demands for admissions. On the other hand I have 45 days according to the rules of civil procedure. I plan on taking every one of them and on the last day I'll fax him my answers to his discovery demands and have them in the mail that same day. In the meantime I'll hope and pray he tries to file motion to deem admitted on me hoping I don't know about the 30/45 day rule. At the same time I file motion to deem admitted I'll motion the court for more time to complete discovery and extend that to the max. I'll give them the maximum amount of grief possible and I know how to do that. Even so, they will win and they will get a judgment. I do owe the money and the final outcome is inevitable and I know that. Then comes the garnishment phase. You see, a judgment is nothing more than an order of the court declaring that the defendant owes the money. It is silent on the matter of how the plaintiff gets paid. That is what the garnishment phase is all about.

Garnishment is a totally separate action in most states. Georgia and a few other states have mechanisms that allow the plaintiff to order the sheriff to start grabbing bank accounts and anything else locatable in order to satisfy judgment. Some states also have mechanisms in place called pre-judgment garnishment which allows plaintiffs to get a court order to grab bank accounts and what have you prior to judgment if the plaintiff can show that there is a reasonable fear that the defendant might try to hide assets or flee the state or county before judgment can be had. Oklahoma don't have that law. So once the judgment is in place they usually have to wait a certain number of days defined in Civil Rules of Procedure before they can start garnishment. That usually happens in one of two ways here in Oklahoma and in most other states. One way is they send the debtor a demand sheet requesting all the information about the debtors assets.(for instance)
(1.)What is the debtor's full name?
(2.)What is the debtor's address
(3). How long have you (debtor) lived at that address?
(4) Where have you lived for the last 10 years?, List all addresses please.(5.)What is the debtor's phone number?
(6.) Where do you bank? Please list all the banking institutions where you have had bank accounts for the last 5 years.
(7.)Please provide the last 5 years of bank statements for each of the banks you where you have had accounts.
(8.)How much cash do you have on hand at the present time?
(9.)Please provide tax returns for the last 7 years
(10) How many vehicles do you own? Please list each one and send us the titles to any and all vehicles you own.
(11.) Please list all real estate you own or have an interest in and the values thereof.
And it just gets worse and worse from there, ad infinitium, ad nauesum
If the debtor fails to answer or fails to answer to their satisfaction they can summons them to court and at that point they either answer to the satisfaction of the court or they go to jail until they do and cough up all their assets. Of course that scares the daylights out of debtors but wouldn't concern me one little bit. It's not that I'm somehow magically insulated from such things but partly because I know that I don't necessarily have to answer all those questions to their satisfaction and I can file motion for protective order against at least some of them. For instance, demanding that I give them statements for some unreasonable amount of years from all banks that I ever did business with for the last few years. That's unreasonable because I'd have to go pay the banks a hefty sum of money to research and produce all those statements and they may not even have them anymore. I'll gladly tell them where I bank now and hope they get stupid enough to go grab my money out of my account. I'd have them in federal court real quick for violation of FDCPA but then they are already well on their way to that destination as it is.

Now let's get back to helping your mother. I think I understand she not only has a job but is on SSI as well. Is that true? If so then tell her to quit any EFT payments to her bank except for her SSI money. Stop such payments immediately and demand a paper check instead of EFT transfers. They have to do that if she asks for it under federal law. They can't fire her for asking or for refusing EFT payments either. They can't fire her for getting a judgment against her either so long as she only gets one. After that it is up to the employer what to do about any future judgments. Have her cash her checks anywhere but at her bank. Don't let any other money get deposited. If you are cosigner on any of her accounts get away from it. Get off her accounts and don't even put Christmas gift money in that SSI account.

Apex has suggested bankruptcy. As most here know I don't advocate bankruptcy. It isn't cheap and filing bankruptcy will sure fix her good credit history for a long time. That may or may not concern her. Many elderly persons will never apply for credit again anyway so that depends on her personal choices. I'm not the least bit concerned about my personal credit. I probably wouldn't ever apply for personal credit again anyway but even so, thanks to the advice and teaching of another poster here I have excellent corporate credit and all my assets are protected under corporate umbrellas so that's another reason I couldn't care less whether I ever get personal credit again. I have the availability of excellent corporate credit and can buy anything I want on credit anyway. Getting excellent corporate credit only took about 4 or 5 months and cost me less than $100.

I do hope I've given you at least a couple of helpful suggestions for your mother.

 

Something I just noticed in your posting. She lives in Florida. If she lives alone she may qualify for head of household and she may not. I think if I remember correctly Florida law on determining whether or not someone qualifies as a head of household hinges on the federal definition under IRS law. If she claims head of household exemption on her federal tax returns then she would qualify for head of household under Florida law which would forbid garnishment of the wages of a head of household.

If that be true then she could also bring a federal fdcpa case against the attorney for doing or threatening to do that which is illegal for them to do. You could help her with the federal case too and in all probability she would never have to actually appear before a federal judge to get the job done. If she qualifies she might be able to file in forma pauperous and not even have to pay the federal court filing fee unless she wins. Of course, if she wins she would have to pay the filing fee but she can probably force the defendant(s) to pay the fee in addition to the settlement plus any other costs such as the service of summons fee which would be done by a U.S. marshal if she files in forma pauperous. Attorney defendants probably just love to get served by a U.S. marshal with a badge on his/her chest and a gun on his/her hip. The effect is probably greatly enhanced if the attorney happens to have a few clients sitting in the waiting room at the time (LOL). It's something to look into but the only way to win is getting proactive. If they have already grabbed SSI money out of your mother's bank account she very well be able to sue them, go away and leave her alone but at the same time get rid of the judgment and pay back any money wrongfully garnished with interest and penalties. If you want to win against seemingly overwhelming odds you have to learn, learn and get very, very proactive. You have to become the mouse that roared.

 

I wouldn't suggest ghostwriting in Florida or anywhere. It is still the unauthorized practice of law and can get you in a heap of trouble.

That said, FL does have some novel laws as to garnishment but, I don't have a FL bar license.

 

I had a funny situation dealing with that same scenario in a Florida court. A man filed with the court Pro Se and his work was really terrible. Really bad spelling, called himself Sui Juris instead of Pro Se, used the copyright symbol after his all caps name, and several other such junk, rambled on saying nothing. The lawyer complained and wanted to sanction the man but the judge refused to do that. The judge ordered him to get some competent help so the man asked me if I could help him. I taught him why he shouldn't use all that junk, how to properly format his pleadings, the parts of a case, gave him a copy of an e-book I have prepared which has lots of examples of various types of pleadings and forms such as a copy of a certificate of mailing, notice of hearing and much, much more. He pretty much copied documents, changed names, addresses, phone numbers and the like to be correct for his situation then uploaded his work to me. Then I would correct any mistakes he had made by phone and let him do the corrections and upload them to me again. When he was all ready he filed his new documents and they went to court. The lawyer complained that the guy had somebody ghost write his stuff for him because it wasn't possible for anyone to prepare such perfect work in so short of time.

He demanded to know who the ghost writer was and the judge told him to sit down and shut up but he kept on sputtering and spitting so the judge sanctioned the lawyer for $500 and told him that if he heard another peep out of him it was going to cost him another $500 every time he spoke. Then the judge set the hearing for the next day and adjourned court. They had another lawyer there next day. (LOL). I don't ghost write, I just teach how to do it by email, phone, fax, the internet or whatever the case might be. Sometimes I have to actually go into their computer and set it up so they can find their documents instead of just letting them get scattered all over their hard drives. Sometimes I have to go in on their system and teach them how to set up and use their word processors or how to use FTP to upload their documents to me for correction.

I'm on the phone with them all the time I'm doing that, explaining what I'm doing and why. Never mind the legal aspects of ghost writing, I simply don't think ghost writing is a good idea in the first place. We all know what Jesus said about teaching a man to fish. Do it for them and they don't learn much if anything. Teach them how to do it and they will always know how to do it.

I must be doing things right because I have people I helped years ago get themselves in a new mess and come back needing help on their new problem. They want to know if I'll help them again and I always do. It is usually much easier the second or third time because they already have the basics down pat.

That also vividly illuminates another problem with the use of attorneys. The attorney prepares all the paperwork, goes to court and does the arguments and the defendant learns nothing. If something goes wrong the defendant never knows why or whether the attorney goofed it up or whether s/he did as good a job as s/he possibly could have under the given set of conditions. The defendant may easily get himself into more problems later on down the line and go back to the same attorney only to pay a high price and get stung all over again and still never know why. In fact, I've had more than a few attorneys come to me for help in consumer affairs cases. Often it is not because somebody hired them but because they got themselves into a financial scrape and are being sued. They are almost always attorneys who specialize in preparing oil and gas leases or they are ambulance chasers or specialize in some other area of law, be experts in their specialties but have no idea about how to proceed in the consumer affairs area. They are usually far more educated in the law than I will ever be and are usually far smarter people than I am but nobody can ever know all there is to know about the law.

Some of the people who come to me are government employees including FBI, CIA, high ranking government employees and even high ranking military officers. Most if not all of them are far smarter than I am. To quote a certain TV show, I might have the answers to lots of problems but that don't necessarily mean I'm smarter than a 5th grader. (LOL)

 

Bill:

I can see that you have a great wealth of knowledge concerning the law; specifically, consumer protection litigation. Moreover, I am personally glad that there are people like you that help others for free. However, I was just trying to shine the light on the subject of unauthoried practice of law for the OP. I don't want to get anyone in trouble and she runs that risk.

Honestly, you do as well but, you're not the unsophisticated litigator and know these risks. I would never presume to be so naive as to tell you "Now, Bill, you better not do A, B, and C." But, I would for the OP in an effort to keep her out of Sun Ethics reach.

Moving back to the original issue, this is what I know: 1) this is an 80 year old woman, 2) said woman has been sued by an original creditor; and, 3) she makes an "existence" wage. I am not a fan of Chapter 7 myself but, under the facts known to us I still suggest BK. Problem is that she probably can't afford one. Therefore, I can only recommend (in general terms, I am not a FL attorney) filing a Suggestion of BK in hopes of staying the proceeding until she can save enough for a BK attorney or has sufficient time to learn how to successfully do it herself.

 

I can't disagree with anything you have just said here. That's why I went into the methods of protecting her SSI income by keeping all other money out of her SSI account and asking for paper checks instead of getting paid by EFT. Another problem that this 80 year old may face is the lack of ability to stand up in court and present any arguments she may have. One 80 year old woman I know of did an admirable job of standing up and telling her side of the story in court but those who can do that are a bit on the rare side whether they are 80 or not. Pensioners who mix outside money with their SSI are putting themselves at risk of losing all their money and ending up without even groceries for the month, losing their homes or other serious consequences.

I am well aware that I tend to make it seem that anyone can win against seasoned collections attorneys. While that may be true it doesn't mean that doing so is going to be easy. Whether it can be done or not also depends on the capabilities of each individual person and their particular talents.
That's why I often recommend that people join Toastmasters for a while so they sharpen their skills in public speaking and thinking on their feet.

Toastmasters can also be a lot of fun. I have a lady friend who was also in Toastmasters and I was going to have the opportunity to assign her a surprise topic to discuss. Sammy knows me well and was very fearful that I would assign her some deep and highly technical subject as her topic of the evening. She called me a couple of times to beg me to take it easy on her and I assured her that I was going to make it as tough as possible. She came to the meeting almost trembling in her boots.
I assigned her the topic of why home cooking is better than eating out in restaurants. She almost fainted at hearing what I had assigned her. A topic so easy any homemaker could discuss with no problem.(LOL) A topic so easy that she didn't even stutter or make one mistake the Au Grammarian could find fault with so she got a perfect score.

I highly recommend that people join a local chapter of Toastmasters and stay with it even if they never have to go to court. There are many benefits for anyone regardless of what they do in life. Its not expensive either and if nothing else you certainly get to meet a lot of very interesting people.