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Synopsis- Sued by Midland Funding. I responded in the proper amount of time with denying all the the items in the complaint. I was prepared to go to the pretrial settlement hearing. Date in my planner and in my phone. Made a huge mistake and put in on the Tuesday of the following week, so Nov. 13 instead on Nov. 6. My daughter was ill on November 6th and had to go to the doctor. Missed school for 2 days. Since we were home, I opened my huge file to last minute prepare for the pretrial settlement hearing the next week because I had done nothing to prep. My plan was to ask the judge to stay or dismiss pending contractual arbitration. When I opened my file, saw that I had missed the court date the day before. I freaked out, called the court and was advised that a default judgement had been entered. I was told that before I could do anything else that I needed to file a motion to set aside the default judgement and that I could do so at the court. The woman advised that they had the forms and I would fill them out and pay $20. My naive thought was I would fill in the blanks and write that my daughter was ill, I could prove so with paperwork from doctor and attendance documentation from school. When I showed up at the court on Tuesday 11/12 (Monday was Veterans Day and court was closed), I was told that I needed to write in why I didn't owe the money for the default judgement. I explained that I had planned to ask the judge to stay or dismiss, etc... I was then advised that I should come back with more documentation. Do I have any chance of getting the default judgement set aside? Should I just call Midland and set up payments? Amount is around $2,100 from the default judgement. Debt is 5 years and 9 months old, so not out of the statute of limitations. I appreciate any help or advice.