xavierq Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 1. Who is suing you?Kirchenbaum & Phillips, P.C. (Attorneys at Law)2. For how much?$8,219.633. Who is the original creditor?Fleet4. How do you know you are being sued?Served and answered5. How were you served? Were you served?Nail and Mail6. What was your correspondence (if any) with the people suing you before you think you were being sued?Letter, phone call. Since sent registered letter requesting no further contact except through mail.7. Where do you live?NY8. When is the last time you paid on this account?uncertain...9. What is the status of your case (if anything has been opened)? You can find this by a) calling the court or looking it up online (many states have this information posted daily).Served and answered, first court date simply set trial for the new date (tomorrow)10. Have you disputed the debt with the credit bureaus (both the original creditor and the collection agency?)No11. Did you request debt validation before the suit was filed? If not, don't bother doing this now.No12. Does your summons require a response? (Look hard!) If you don't get a questionnaire with your summons, you are still probably required to answer it in writing. If you don't respond to the lawsuit notice you will lose automatically. In 99% of the cases, they will require you to answer the summons, and each point they are claiming. We need to know what the "charges" are. Please post what they are claiming. Did you receive an interrogatory (questionnaire) regarding the lawsuit?Already answered13. What evidence did they send with the summons? An affadavit? A statement from the OC? Anything else they attached as exhibits?Nothing14. What is the SOL on the debt? To find out:7 yearsI have court tomorrow, and I'm still a bit uncertain. I was advised by this board previously to look into civil procedures and such, but the information I find is so overwhelming I don't know where to begin. I cannot afford an attorney. I'm afraid I'm going to walk in and get "ran through the system" and be out on the courthouse steps with a judgment in my hand before I know whats happened.I've read a lot of the threads on this forum, but I get nervous in front of a judge. I'm not confident I'll know what to say when the time comes. I don't know what proof they have, or how to answer it. Does anyone have a list of what I'm likely to encounter, and how to respond to it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astiman Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Unless you are acknowledging the alleged debt, ask for a continuance, and then ask for more info here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRoadBack Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 1. Who is suing you?Kirchenbaum & Phillips, P.C. (Attorneys at Law)2. For how much?$8,219.633. Who is the original creditor?Fleet4. How do you know you are being sued?Served and answered5. How were you served? Were you served?Nail and Mail6. What was your correspondence (if any) with the people suing you before you think you were being sued?Letter, phone call. Since sent registered letter requesting no further contact except through mail.7. Where do you live?NY8. When is the last time you paid on this account?uncertain...9. What is the status of your case (if anything has been opened)? You can find this by a) calling the court or looking it up online (many states have this information posted daily).Served and answered, first court date simply set trial for the new date (tomorrow)10. Have you disputed the debt with the credit bureaus (both the original creditor and the collection agency?)No11. Did you request debt validation before the suit was filed? If not, don't bother doing this now.No12. Does your summons require a response? (Look hard!) If you don't get a questionnaire with your summons, you are still probably required to answer it in writing. If you don't respond to the lawsuit notice you will lose automatically. In 99% of the cases, they will require you to answer the summons, and each point they are claiming. We need to know what the "charges" are. Please post what they are claiming. Did you receive an interrogatory (questionnaire) regarding the lawsuit?Already answered13. What evidence did they send with the summons? An affadavit? A statement from the OC? Anything else they attached as exhibits?Nothing14. What is the SOL on the debt? To find out:7 yearsI have court tomorrow, and I'm still a bit uncertain. I was advised by this board previously to look into civil procedures and such, but the information I find is so overwhelming I don't know where to begin. I cannot afford an attorney. I'm afraid I'm going to walk in and get "ran through the system" and be out on the courthouse steps with a judgment in my hand before I know whats happened.I've read a lot of the threads on this forum, but I get nervous in front of a judge. I'm not confident I'll know what to say when the time comes. I don't know what proof they have, or how to answer it. Does anyone have a list of what I'm likely to encounter, and how to respond to it?What did you say in your answer? Have you gone through discovery? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trueq Posted January 17, 2008 Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 Court cases are mostly won or lost BEFORE trial. "Discovery" is the magic word. Without it, you can't tell if they got something on you or not! You can't be properly prepared without it.Your question is the equivalent of getting advice from a committee on the sidewalk about 1/2 a second before you get hit by a truck because you were standing in the road.At this point, go to court and defend yourself. Prepare a written answer if possible.Object to counsel testifying and motion to strike "documents" not verified by a fact witness that is not available to be cross-examined by you.Who knows, maybe you wil get lucky with a judge who is a stickler for rules of evidence!That's not much, because the truck is probably not braking at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xavierq Posted January 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 I have no idea how to do discovery. Every time I ask for help here, I seem to get vague answers, and told to hire an attorney. I'm here because I can't afford one.Is discovery something I do at court, or ahead of time. Either way, I don't know how. Every search I've made on it has only found attorneys who want to change me to do it. If the information is out there, I sure can't find it.I denied everything but my mailing address in the response to the summons.I wish there was a simple list of what I'm meant to do, step by step. This all confuses me a great deal. And more than likely I'm going to lose badly tomorrow because of that ignorance.Edit: if I was meant to do it ahead of time, shouldn't I have received a request from them for the same? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjtx Posted January 17, 2008 Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 You need to look up your states rules of civil procedure, rules of evidence, etc. It can be confusing and if you're a newbie and in a hurry your best bet is to hire an attorney.In general, you can send requests for admission, interrogatories, can take depositions of witnesses, etc. and you do all this before trial so that the other party has time to respond and there are no surprises at trial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xavierq Posted January 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 Seems I got very lucky. They opted not to send an attorney. The judge dismissed the case for failure to prosecute.Now what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willingtocope Posted January 17, 2008 Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 Was it dismissed with prejudice (which means they can't refile the case)?If not, you'll probably hear from them again.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astiman Posted January 17, 2008 Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 Make sure you get a written copy of the dismissal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trueq Posted January 17, 2008 Report Share Posted January 17, 2008 Prepare one for the court, with prejudice, and ask the court clerk to have the judge sign it.Just to confirm his decision.You get that, you defeated them and the debt!I hope to get this lucky one day... a lawyer too lazy to show up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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