Pre-Bankruptcy Mistake:
Failing to Respond to a Lawsuit
You should never ignore a lawsuit. If a sheriff’s deputy knocks on your door and hands you papers, or if a private process server finds you and hands you a lawsuit, you should contact a lawyer immediately.
Delivery of a “summons” means that you have been sued, and if you have been sued, you need to take action because the clock is running.
Under Georgia law, you have 30 days to respond to a lawsuit, plus a 15 day default period whereby you can file an answer late if you pay court costs.
Your response to a lawsuit must be in writing and it must be filed with the clerk of the court where the lawsuit was filed. It is not sufficient to call the plaintiff’s lawyer or to write the lawyer
a letter without filing paperwork in court.
In general you are best off not trying to represent yourself, because not knowing the rules of court could come back to hurt you. This is especially
true if you are sued in state court or superior court, because formal rules of evidence and procedure apply.
What Happens if You Do Not Respond to a Lawsuit
If you do not file an answer in a timely manner to the lawsuit filed against you, the plaintiff will go to court and ask the judge for a default
judgment. This means that the plaintiff will get an order from the judge granting the plaintiff the relief sought - i.e., a court order that you owe some dollar amount. That judgment can be turned
into a fi. fa. and used to garnish your wages, your bank account and to put a lien on your house or other property.
While we can generally get rid of judgments in bankruptcy, it is not always possible to do so and judgments add a layer of complexity and cost to your
bankruptcy case.
The Return of “Debtor’s Prisons?”
More recently, aggressive creditors have used the state court judgment process to try to get judgment debtors thrown in jail. According to a recent
article on the Marketpop blog, debt collection plaintiffs in Minnesota are asking state court judges to
imprison judgment debtors for contempt of court. Under state court rules in Minnesota (we have similar rules here in Georgia) if a judgment defendant does not respond to post-judgment interrogatories and
requests for production of documents, that defendant can be deemed in contempt of court and put in jail.
I have not seen this level of aggressiveness yet here in the Atlanta area but I would not be surprised to see debt collection firms try this tactic.
The main point to remember: lawsuits represent a serious threat to your pocketbook and possibly to your liberty. Do not assume that the lawsuit problem has gone away because nothing seems to happen for weeks at a time. The court system moves slowly but if you ignore the process you will suffer the consequences. Never ignore a lawsuit and associated papers.
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