CALIFORNIA DISMISSAL LVNV MANDARICH

[MGC]

Finally got posted on court site, Dismissed without prejudice of course but as my friend said, hey a win is a win...no idea why they dragged it out sooooo long...

Case History

Mandarich Chicago filed last july 2019, for LVNV, I answered after being served and buying and quickly reading "Stick it to Sue Happy Debt Collectors", made notes and went to the legal library and did the line by line response ( I had to pay for the FULL lawsuit as it was served without required paperwork)...and fortunately this was BEFORE Covid because I filed answer got stamped copy etc (which was NEVER posted on the court website) and then about 10 days after filing my answer (to Chicago office) as I was trying to figure out best discovery questions from book since california only allows 35 non-compound questions, their discovery (from California office) arrived...so I answered theirs (to California office)and sent mine and got their back at end of October 2019...(California office)...then nothing really happened till July 2020 order to show cause hearing...It was pretty unclear to me if I should go or not but I am so glad I did...I came forward and that led to my first post here...Judge did not see filed answer and I told her I had the stamped copy here and she said " take it up with the clerks...it is like you are not even here...this doesnt concern you""" WTF???? I AM THE ONE BEING SUED...HOW DOES THIS NOT CONCERN ME????Anyways, called clerks (if not for covid would have gone down there directly!!!!) (side note thank God the other suit filed in feb had my answer posted on court site since they never sent me a stamped copy of my answer)...anyways, I got a request for judgement (from Chicago office) dated the Fri before order to show cause hearing...I had filed case management statement that week and thought that was what I was getting...nope..but their judgement was denied due to my answer on file from Aug 2019....Then they set a case management conference for 9-14-20 and I kept waiting for their statement which was not filed till 9-1 which is LATE and I when I went to the conference I told the judge it was filed late and no one had talked to me from their side or even tried...to which the judge told the local snake...erm....lawyer to tell them to pick up the phone next time...so I talked to her briefly after to give her the papers showing I am basically judgement proof which she said she could not accept....and that was that...our court date was set at end of next year...then suddenly Monday I received the Request for Dismissal which I called court about Monday which she did not see it and I posted here about it...and then last night checked court site and it said DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE PRIOR TO TRIAL...

so really not sure a) why they went all the way to setting trial date before dismissing and b) why they waited nearly a month after case management to dismiss...not sure if it was because of lack of communication between Chicago and California offices (dismissal and judgement requests came from Chicago but discovery back and forth came from California office)  I know everyone says it is a win at least but actually was totally more confident in winning this case than the TD Bank one (we have done no discovery either side on that one)...but I will be posting some of my commentary I had ready to put in a Motion in Limine and some stuff about LVNV I found all this stuff that I felt would be super helpful for winning...that way, anyone else who wants to fight and protect themselves against judgements etc can use in their cases...it is frankly shocking and very upsetting to me how many people are not even trying to make an answer in my own town which means so many people could be attempting to at least have a shot at preserving their money etc...I feel like trying to locate them and pass on what I learned but of course do not want to get jn trouble for practicing law without a license....although CLEARLY I learned more about the law than these lawyers even know or care about...even the judge had no idea what I was talking about ccp 1013 where it says 3 times that proof of service should be accompanied by an UNSIGNED copy of proof of service...otherwise you are committing perjury...I made copies of that for the judge...it was SUPER annoying that I was going out of my way to follow ALL the laws and yet here I am, regular person who is constantly getting these proof of services signed...by people who should know better...My mailer never signed the proof of service to the attorneys but I submitted her proof of services signed to clerks and I kept a signed copy....but anyways...I am truly thinking of writing my own book for California people...so anyways, will be keeping everyone updated on the other case...

thanks for all the assistance I personally got and all the anonymous people's posts I combed thru...this victory is ALL of ours....

[WhoCares1000]

What happened here is that first the judge got mad because their performance is based on case management and he thought that this was an easy default that the plaintiff law firm forgot about and turned out his team messed up. The judge however did not want the appeals court to find out that his team messed things up so had to refuse the default and move the case along only to find that the plaintiff law firm was not following the rules either. His team messed up because there are so many cases being filed in courts and the court systems in this country are so underfunded that mistakes are bound to happen. First lesson here is to keep your thumb on everyone. You as the defendant are at an advantage here because you are only managing one case whereas the plaintiff law firm is managing 1000s of cases.

As for the plaintiff law firm, once they realize that you intend to fight the case and you are serious, they will walk away because it is more cost effective to take the loss on you and move on to lower hanging fruit. They take it as far as they do because they want to see how serious you are in fighting the case. In your case, it also helped that you told the attorney you are collection proof which means it does not matter how much they spend on the case, they will not collect anything. The arbitration path follows the same pattern, the plaintiff seeing how far you will go and when it becomes cost ineffective to collect, they walk away. This works because 98% of the defendants do not answer and thus are easy pickings for the plaintiff with default judgements.

As for the default and not answering rate, you are not going to change that no matter what you do. It is known that most people in this situation hide their heads in the sand and think that everything will end OK, at least until the wage garnishment and/or bank account is cleaned out. We see that on this site all of the time. In Minnesota, due to abuse of the pocket docket system here, the legislature passed a law that required, among other reforms, that the summons and complaint have on it, in big red bold letters, at statement saying that you are being sued and that you need to answer within 20 days to preserve your rights. Before the reforms, the default rate was 98%. After the reforms, the default rate is...................................................... 98%. If the legislature cannot change the rate, we do not stand much of a chance although we can certain try.

In any case, congrats on your win. It is a well fought victory, even if it is anti-climatic.