{"id":952,"date":"2019-07-25T00:07:03","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T00:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/?p=952"},"modified":"2019-08-01T21:53:57","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T21:53:57","slug":"i-was-never-served-with-the-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/2019\/i-was-never-served-with-the-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"I Was Never Served With The Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By <a aria-label=\"Ryan C. Wood (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/ryan-c-wood-bay-area-bankruptcy-attorney.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ryan C. Wood<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, I know you were not served with the lawsuit.&nbsp; That does not mean a judgment, that is, a default judgment, was not entered against you accruing judgment interest at 10% (California Law).&nbsp; You were sued and the process service company committed a fraud and filed a proof of service under penalty of perjury saying you were somehow personally served with the summons and complaint.&nbsp; You are now finding out about the lawsuit because your employer received a wage garnishment notice or your bank account was levied on.&nbsp; I know this is the first you are hearing of this lawsuit.&nbsp; The lawsuit was probably filed over five years ago and has now grown to a substantial amount of money given the 10% judgment interest and addition of attorneys\u2019 fees and expenses.&nbsp; <a aria-label=\"Bankruptcy lawyers (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/redwood-city-bankruptcy-lawyers.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bankruptcy lawyers<\/a> hear about this over and over again unfortunately.&nbsp; So what happened?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Service\nof a Lawsuit<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When a lawsuit is filed against you the summons and\ncomplaint with other documents are supposed to be personally served on\nyou.&nbsp; That means the summons and\ncomplaint were handed to you, thus personal service.&nbsp; If the summons and complaint cannot be handed\nto you for whatever reason there is also personal service by substitute\nservice.&nbsp; Generally a competent member of\nyour household, someone that lives with you, your domicile, someone 18 years of\nage or older can be served personally instead of you with the summons and\ncomplaint.&nbsp; Then the summons and\ncomplaint has to be mailed to you at that address.&nbsp; You can be served at your place of employment\nif the summons and complaint are left with your boss or someone in charge.&nbsp; There are issues with personal service by\nsubstitute service at your place of employment though given the nature of it\nand is less common than substitute service where you live.&nbsp; You can even be served personally by\npublication believe it or not.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How\nCome I Never Knew About This Lawsuit<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You will need to obtain the proof of service of the\nsummons and complaint filed in the case to know how the summons and complaint\nwere allegedly served on you and when.&nbsp; I\nam talking about primarily collection lawsuits for various debts such as credit\ncards.&nbsp; It is not possible to hide a\nlawsuit between neighbors for building a fence on the wrong property and a\nlawsuit is filed to have the fence removed.&nbsp;\nIt is very easy to hide a lawsuit for unpaid bills and have the lawsuit\nmove forward without your knowledge.&nbsp; The\ngoal is to obtain a default judgment and then enforce it at some point in the\nfuture.&nbsp; Not move a fence, an unpaid wage\nclaim or personal injury claim.&nbsp; The\nreason you did not pay the debt in full or stopped making payments does not\nmatter.&nbsp; The account may have gone to a\ncollection agency too and that is the entity suing.&nbsp; The summons and complaint were filed with the\ncourt then sent to a process service company to personal serve you.&nbsp; The lawsuit filer does have information about\nyou that may or may not still be accurate.&nbsp;\nYou filled out an application for the credit card or some other type of credit\naccount.&nbsp; You may or may not still live\nthere.&nbsp; If you still live at the same\naddress as in the application and the process service company alleges they\npersonally served you there or served a competent member of your household at\nthat location by substitute service it is difficult to prove whether they actually\ndid or not.&nbsp; If you lived at a different\naddress then what is listed in the proof of service at that time there is\nhope.&nbsp; If there is other inaccurate or\nimpossible information like the address where you were allegedly served does\nnot actually exist on Earth there is hope.&nbsp;\nYes, I have in fact dealt with a proof of service of a summons and\ncomplaint allegedly served at an address that does not exist on planet Earth\nand a default judgment was entered against the defendant in that case.&nbsp; Not good.&nbsp;\nThe point is the proof of service will have some sort of discrepancy you\nknow is not accurate or true.&nbsp; Proving\nthat the method of service never happened is another story and is not\nfree.&nbsp; So you never were served with the\nsummons and complaint and now the plaintiff requested and received a default\njudgment against you that is enforceable.&nbsp;\nYour bank accounts can be levied on.&nbsp;\nYour wages can be garnished.&nbsp; A\njudgment lien can be recorded against your home or other real property if you\nown any.&nbsp; Not good.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\nPlaintiff or Their Attorneys Will Wait Four Years or More to Enforce the\nJudgment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is part of the game plan for the fraudulent\nservice of lawsuits on defendants.&nbsp; It\nhas been going on for years and years.&nbsp; Why\ndo they wait to enforce the default judgment?&nbsp;\nOne reason is the fraudulently obtained default judgment accrues\ninterest at 10% per annum here in California.&nbsp;\nSo a $7,000 judgment that was not worth spending too much time trying to\ncollect on becomes $12,000 or more and becomes much more worth spending time\nand money to enforce.&nbsp; Second it becomes\nmore and more difficult to prove the service of the summons and complaint is\nfraudulent as time passes.&nbsp; Records are\nlost and memories fade.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How\nto Make it All Go Away<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, unfortunately filing for bankruptcy if eligible is the fastest and cheapest way to make the default judgment go away forever.&nbsp; This is a broad generalization and depending upon your individual circumstances not possible.&nbsp; As a <a aria-label=\"bankruptcy attorney (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.san-jose-bankruptcy-lawyers.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">bankruptcy attorney<\/a> I have discussed the service of a summons and complaint over and over again with potential clients.&nbsp; If you have other debts that are a problem as well again bankruptcy will tie that all up into a nice neat bow.&nbsp; To fight in state court and have the default vacated attorneys\u2019 fees and expenses can exceed $3,000 or more.&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ryan C. Wood Yeah, I know you were not served with the lawsuit.&nbsp; That does not mean a judgment, that is, a default judgment, was not entered against you accruing judgment interest at 10% (California Law).&nbsp; You were sued and the process service company committed a fraud and filed a proof of service under [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[326],"tags":[330,329,331],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":956,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions\/956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fremont-bankruptcy-attorney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}