We recently had a couple of cases in which the creditors had obtained judgments against our clients without properly serving them with the Summons (that means the creditors did not give them proper notice of the lawsuits), and we were able to get the judgments vacated and set aside.
In the first case, client JW was not aware that a lawsuit had been filed against her and a judgment obtained until she was informed by her mortgage banker that there was a judgment on her credit record. We discovered that the creditor’s process server claimed to have served the summons and complaint to her in 2006 at her previous home, which in fact she had sold and moved away from two years previously in 2004. Faced with the facts, the creditor’s lawyers agreed to sign a stipulation to have the judgment vacated and set aside, and the judgment was removed from the client’s records.
In the second case, client JN had no idea that she had a judgment against her until the creditor’s collection agency snatched over $8,000.00 from her bank account. In that case, the creditor had the client’s address for service correct, but the process server had falsely claimed to have served the client’s “co-tenant” when she in fact had no such co-tenant, and the papers had never been properly served to her. The judge agreed that the judgment had been obtained improperly, and not only ordered the judgment to be set aside and vacated but also ordered the creditor to pay back the $8,000.00+ taken from the client’s bank account.
In both these cases, getting the judgments vacated does not guarantee victory later. But at least now these clients will be able to make proper defenses, and may even triumph in their cases. At minimum, they are in a much better bargaining position during settlement negotiations.
