help?!?

I live in Washington state. I really need to get some answers, hopefully somebody can help me out. And I don't know if I am in the right message board. Anyways. My mother and father divorced 6 or 7 years ago. Debt had occured during the marriage and they decided to split up what needed to be paid between themselves. I am under the impression that what ever had been agreed upon had been signed by a judge to be final. Well since then my mother has long since paid off her debt and my father hasn't. For a while creditors would call and harrass my mother to pay the bill and she would tell them every time that it wasn't her problem and that they had since been divorced so on and so on. They have left her alone for the last two years until the other day. When she was served with a summons to appear in court because she was being sued. I haven't seen my father in like three years since he just left all of the sudden. Now is she responsible for all of this just because she was married to my father when the debt was accrued? Even though a judge signed that it was his responsibility to pay the debt off? Anything at this point would really help. thank you.

[bigun]

Well, divorce decrees are not binding on 3rd party creditors. If thius was a joint account, they can go after either party. Also, you've the problem of Wash. being a community property state.
However, Wa. does have a short statute of limitations on cc debt. Just 3 years. Your Mom needs to find out when the orginal creditor was last paid. Can she locate your father for an answer? She needs to get her credit reports and see what the chargeoff date looks like.
She does need to respond to the summons with a general denial. She also needs to send a letter CRRR to the opposing lawyer demanding that they validate the debt She needs to demand something proving her ownership of the account and a complete payment history. A sample letter can be found at:
[url]http://www.creditinfocenter.com/forms/sampleletter9.shtml[/url]

I'd leave out the first paragrapgh about ID fraud.
Jetx and Ladynred will be along tomorrow with some better ideas but, this should get you started.