Stipulation of Settlement - looks OK?

One thing to be aware of is that the term "stipulation" quite often reduces to a stipulated judgment which may or may not end up being the case in this instance.

A stipulated judgment simply means that you have already agreed that all of the allegations of the plaintiff are true and correct and that you have agreed to pay the demanded amount in full. I would almost be willng to bet that in the event you sign it they will immediately go to court and file it as a stipulated agreement and of course the court will grant the judgment. That will go on your credit reports and your public record as any other judgment would.

In short, it is a confession of judgment.You cannot later argue about anything at all. It deprives you of any right to do anything but pay up on time. In the event you fail to do so they can go for garnishment just as they could with any judgment.

Signing such an agreement is not a good idea in my personal opinion. You have to make your own decision about that.

 

Never agree to a stipulated judgment. Your chances of settlement are pretty much over at that point because they pretty much have you where they want you.

The judgment will be immediately filed and will be reflected on your redit report. If you do not pay as agreed, they can then garnish wages, seize assets, etc.

Also, in most states a judgment is a lien against all the real property you own in the parish/county/borough in which the judgment is filed. Which means, in a worse case scenario, in the event you would need to file for bankruptcy, unless you have no real property or that property is exempt from seizure, they can still proceed "in rem" against that property in the event of a discharge.

 

Dismissal isn't good enough. The fact that a judgment was filed is still on your public record and will remain there almost forever. The reason is that the court must have a record of what happened in every case, dismissed or whatever. It can be reported as a judgment on your credit reports whether the judgment was rendered against you or dismissed. Some might attempt to tell you the credit bureaus can't do that because if that happened it would be the same as convicting you of the offense even though you never were. Others may attempt to tell you that they can't do that because it would be false and misleading information and while all those arguments might very well be quite correct the fact still remains that a judgment was filed against you and that is all they are reporting. It isn't fair but that's the way it often is and you can't deny that a judgment was filed against you so trying to dispute the tradeline may well turn out to be useless. So what to do to prevent possible future problems might be to see if the record can be sealed at the courthouse. The attorney would have to agree to it and file the necessary papers with the court to have that done. It will still be on your public record but the credit bureaus may not be able to pick it up and you would then be able to successfully dispute it as incorrect information. The attorney is correct in telling you they can't do anything about your credit reports if they don't report which they probably don't do. But they can't control or do anything about what their client or a collection agency may have put there.

Yes, but don't try to write the settlement agreement. You insist on the clauses you want in the settlement agreement but let them write it up because if they break their own agreement you will be in a much stronger position to bring a suit against them for violation of the agreement.

There isn't a lot to be put down in writing. Before you do or say anything else call up some attorney in your area and ask whether the court record can be sealed if the plaintiff's attorney agrees to dismiss his case. I don't want you to take my word that it can be done because your court system might not have a provision for that. To make matters even more difficult for you is the fact that many lawyers might not even be aware of that possibility. You might have to go to your local law library and see if the librarians can help you find the answer.

If possible you need to go to the law library at a university that has a law school. Maybe you could even find out on line. I don't know because I've never researched the matter. I'm just repeating what was told to me by a lawyer in Denver long ago.

Another source of information might be your local county clerk's office.

 

Then you only have a few days to respond or pay and get it dismissed. Yes, a judgment has been filed in county court and a summons issued. If you don't do something then the court will have no choice but to grant the judgment.

There are several things you might do such as asking the court to grant you an extension of time to answer, file an answer and your positive averrments at the same time, object to parts of their complaint, motions for clarification, demands for interrogatories, admissions and production of documents just for starters. Those are possibilities, not that I am advising you to do any of it.
In fact, you have let so much time go by now that you simply don't have the time to do very much of the above without asking for extension of time.

It is obvious that at this time you are totally defenseless and more or less blindly groping for possible answers. That is most certainly not a good position to be in and almost out of time as well. Even an attorney would be hard pressed to come up with answers at this late date but could get extra time to formulate his case whatever that might be. There are any number of things an attorney can do to gain extra time and doing so would be no problem.

The chances that you could get more time are pretty fair but not nearly as good as those an attorney would have if you could find one to take your case. Attorneys are not hard to find but good ones willing to take on your kind of situation are. You might have had a chance if you had sought competent legal help as soon as you received your summons.

Obviously you now have only three options. One is to go ahead with some kind of agreement to pay and then keep your agreement or find and attorney willing to go to court and fight for you or find someone who can work with you
one-on-one to teach you how to fight and do it within the next day or two.

Take your pick. The choice is up to you but you will have to decide quickly. All I can do is wish you the best of luck whatever your choice.

Yes, if it can be done at all it does make sense. What you have to worry about now is time more than conditions so if you choose to pay up then don't let that demand ruin your chances for a dismissal on settlement. It simply wouldn't be worth it.

If you can't pay the whole thing at one time and pay it immediately then you would either have to go for the stipulated agreement which might or might not end up being a stipulated judgment.

You have some tough calls to make and you have spent far too much valuable time procrastinating about what to do. I'm not condemning you for that. I can easily understand how it happens.

 

I say do not sign anything with the word judgment in it. Period

 

File an answer to the lawsuit denying everything, except your name and address. If you have any affirmitive defenses such as accord and satisfaction, time barred, etc put those in to.

It will stop them from getting a default judgment.

 

I agree with you 100% Rocket.

If he goes for the stipulated agreement and they turn it into a stipulated judgment which I think they are likely to do before the ink even gets dry he can't even go back later and attempt to get it vacated. To make matters even worse, a judgment don't say he has to pay. It just says he owes the money.

The stipulated judgment will not only force him to pay but do so on their schedule. The terms of the stipulated might even be for more money a week than they could legally take out of his paycheck if they got a plain judgment and then garnished his wages.

The stipulated judgment would most likely be far worse than letting them get a judgment in court and face it later.

His best bet is to file a motion for extension of time to answer but he almost has to get that filed today. If he has a plausible reason or can invent one he just might get an extension of time. So what would be a good excuse? There are many that might suffice.

Maybe he was out of the state on business and needs time to find an attorney. I'm sure others here in the forum can figure out other good reasons he could use to ask for more time. He has been talking to their lawyers on the phone but he could have been out of town and using his cell phone to call them.

He might be able to get them to agree to an extension of time due to the fact that he is trying to work out a settlement with them.

If he can get an extension of time he might be able to find someone to help him get his paperwork done correctly and then start to fight them.

If he wants to fight he is going to have to learn how to properly prepare and file his answer, motions, notices of hearings, certificates of mailing, interrogatories, admissions, demand for production of documents and more.

He may have to use Duces Tecum or other filings as well. He can do all of that. If he wants to fight then he desperately needs more time and he needs help which he cannot get on this message forum because we are not attorneys and could not put out that kind of information on this or any other forum without taking the risk of being accused of illegal practice of law.

It would not even make any difference whether we were or were not attempting to practice law here, it wouldn't be worth taking the chance of getting accused of it.

Yes Rocket, I agree with you.

 

That is a good strategy.