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Portfolio Recovery Associates : Dismissed Without Prejudice


SoCal Somewhere
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Or, should the title be: DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE (and how much of a win is this?)

Ok, I realize there may be some pitfalls in that PRA could re-open my case. But, do they/would they do that? I ain't gloating. The lead up was stressful, I was flailing and there were some things I could've done better. See my original post.

A recap of the past two weeks:

My last hearing was to set a trial date of Feb 8. The judge handed us both an Advance Trial Review Order. ( Look it up for California to see samples of it.) I was confused by the document. It basically was an inventory of case evidence and witnesses. The contract attorney for the plaintiff filed it with nothing listed. (Suspicious: No evidence? No Witnesses?) I did the same.

I was late to send out my Discovery/ Demand for Documents to the Plaintiff. This was a mistake. The deadline is tricky. I understood it to be 30 days before trial. But it closes 30 days before trial. I feel I still don't completely understand the deadline, but I now at least know to get it done early, at latest 65 days before trial.

That being said- it would have been understandable and permissive for the Plaintiff to just ignore my discovery requests. However, they ended up replying the day before the trial with a point by point refusal of each of my discovery demands per my violation for CCP 2024.020(a)

So, why even bother sending me that? Did they have to? Or, were they trying to psyche me out?

Anyway...

TRIAL DAY!

I wake up early, keep a positive attitude, go the gym, "Mama Said Knock You Out" on repeat! Get to the court house early. Breathing deep. Courtroom doors open at 9:00 am sharp. Friday trial call. Everybody signing in. All kinds of people and civil matters stacking the day's schedule.

Contract lawyer for the Plaintiff strides in, calls me out while he signs in and announces "I'm going to dismiss your case" . We wait for the judge to call us into the octagon to make it official. And that's it! 5 minutes. 

So, what happened here? Am I lucky? Did I simply answer and show up? Did I use the Magic Words?

Well, like I said- no gloating here. I got TWO MORE of these things on deck.

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 Excellent.  It sure is peculiar how the naysayers are as far away as they can get every time someone wins in court but when you say you want to fight a JDB in court all you hear is, "Those outdated tricks don't work anymore"  "These days they demand all the documentation they need from the OC and all states have adapted to the 'adoptive records doctrine' "or "You can no longer win if arbitration isn't an option and everyone in the courtroom knows you owe the money so you should just work out a settlement."

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Congrats as well.  I'd call it a win.  I doubt if they will be back.  As I'm not familiar with California, I can't say if it was something you did or you were just lucky.  Maybe the JDBs there just don't want to bother with contested cases, and prefer the easy prey of default judgments.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

 Sounds like a win to me! I just had our case dismissed this week because their lawyer did not show up.  They didn’t have any proof as far as I know. How long do I need to wait the 7.6 years to fight this to get it off our credit? 

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  • 2 years later...
On 2/9/2019 at 8:01 AM, texasrocker said:

everyone in the courtroom knows you owe the money so you should just work out a settlement."

This made me laugh so hard. It’s hard to defend yourself with a straight face, but  I’ve done it five times and won five times. Thank goodness the burden of proof is on them.

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35 minutes ago, TrialDateSetFor said:

This made me laugh so hard. It’s hard to defend yourself with a straight face, but  I’ve done it five times and won five times. Thank goodness the burden of proof is on them.

Your comment is rude and condescending.  The type and amount of evidence required in your IL county court for debt collection actions can very well differ in county and appellate courts in other states.  

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11 hours ago, BV80 said:

Your comment is rude and condescending.  The type and amount of evidence required in your IL county court for debt collection actions can very well differ in county and appellate courts in other states.  

Oh Dear, I was genuinely laughing at the fact that he said “everyone in the court room knows you owe the money.” I guess I wanted to believe that when a person is defending themselves some in the courtroom May actually believe they truly “don’t recall.” 
 

Anyway, my apologies for saying something offensive.

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1 hour ago, TrialDateSetFor said:

Oh Dear, I was genuinely laughing at the fact that he said “everyone in the court room knows you owe the money.” I guess I wanted to believe that when a person is defending themselves some in the courtroom May actually believe they truly “don’t recall.” 
 

Anyway, my apologies for saying something offensive.

Thank you for clarifying.  I offer my apology for misunderstanding your comment. 

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