being sued by brookwood loans of California

[bizzy]

Was served  papers by law firm in newport beach California. The date the papers were filed was August 11 2015 with the court in my county. I am totally confused because i never received anything from the courts. Can they still sue me with documents that were filed last year? Any advice would be appreciated

[hades01]

Assuming you're in California:

"California Rules of Court 3.110(b) Service of complaint

The complaint must be served on all named defendants and proofs of service on those defendants must be filed with the court within 60 days after the filing of the complaint. When the complaint is amended to add a defendant, the added defendant must be served and proof of service must be filed within 30 days after the filing of the amended complaint."

You can't ignore it and hope the court figures it out though, you're still going to have to respond in some manner.  A motion to dismiss or maybe a demurrer.  That's outside my experience, but I'm sure someone can help you with the particulars (contact your local legal aid organization as well).  You shouldn't have any problem getting this tossed as long as you don't ignore it.

[bizzy]

Thanks for the info

[CollectionDefenseGuy]

Unfortunately, in California, collection cases are special animals for purposes of case management, because the collection lobby basically  helped pass special rules, including making inapplicable the rule that summons and complaint need to be served within 60-days after filing.  They get 180 days instead, and that is usually not enforced into far longer than 180 days has transpired!  The prior comment is correct that you will need to file a response within 30-days of being served to stay safe.

EVENTUALLY, courts will dismiss an uncontested case if the debt collector does not obtain a default judgment (and to get a default judgment the debt collectors has to prove that it served the case and that the defendant has not responded within 30-days of service).  The court has a procedure for dismissing unserved debt collection cases, by setting an "order to show cause" hearing whereat the court "orders" the debt collector "to show cause" for why the debt collector has not yet served the defendant and obtained a default judgment.  This is addressed at California Rule of Court 3.740 and in particular at subsection(e) thereof:

(e) Effect of failure to serve within required time

If proofs of service on all defendants are not filed or the plaintiff has not obtained an order for publication of the summons within 180 days after the filing of the complaint, the court may issue an order to show cause why reasonable monetary sanctions should not be imposed. If proofs of service on all defendants are filed or an order for publication of the summons is filed at least 10 court days before the order to show cause hearing, the court must continue the hearing to 360 days after the filing of the complaint.

In your situation, assuming the court has not already dismissed the case after such an OSC,  I respectfully disagree with the prior commenter's conclusion that you will have no trouble getting the case tossed; you have not provided enough information to draw such a conclusion.  The mere fact that you were served 10-months after the case was filed isn't going to help you unless the case has already been dismissed, so your level of difficulty in prevailing in the case will depend upon other factors.  MOST of the time, the appropriate initial response is a "general denial" (whether submitted on the form of that name, or whether you file a document captioned as an "answer" that contains a general denial within it).

You might want to take a look at this: https://consumerlawcoach.com/defending-collection-lawsuit-california/introduction/course-overview/

Good luck! 

[calawyer]

I agree with CDG.  If you have now been served, it would be extremely unlikely to get a court to dismiss for failure to serve in a timely fashion.

Excellent link above.  Prepared by  Ian Chowdhury who was responsible for the excellent decision in CACH v. Rodgers that we have used time and time again.