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Need some advice as to how to proceed

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NancyLou9

Guest
What is the name of your state? Ohio

There is some background to this, but the basic points are, for those of you not familiar with this...

1. Sued a private party, pro se, in Court of Common Pleas.

2. Served on December 21, 2003, live and in person.

3. Defendant sent a letter to judge, ex parte, asking if she could attend Rule 16 hearing that was set via telephone, rather than attend in person.

4. Jusge took this to mean she was entering an appearance in the case and gave an extension to file a response to 28 February 2004, rather than granting us a Default in January 2004.

5. Defendant filed a response on 18 February 2004, but it was so badly done, we couldn't make heads not tails of it. The response to the counts either had nothing to do with the accusation or they were ignored completely. Towards the end, the responses were so openly hostile, that they were ridiculous.

6. February 27, 2003, we filed a Motion for Rule 11 Sanctions, asking that the response be stricken and that we be permitted to proceed as tho the response never happened.

7. March 1, judge signs order granting Rule 11 Motion, striking response from the record, however, he gave the defendant until March 31, 2004 to submit another response. Basically, what he said in his order was that she really needed to get an attorney and that should she fail to file a proper response, the matter was "ripe for default/summary judgement" against the defendant.

Now my question(s).

1. Is there anything we can file to get the default now?
a. The defendant has not responded to any of the 39 interro-
gatories we sent with the original complaint.

b. The Defendant has refused to respond to the three
requests for discovery we have made, all CC'd to the court
for the file. All of these were mailed at least 60 days ago.
The interrogatorries were served with the original comp-
laint on 21 December 2003.

c. The Defendant has refused to respond to any correspon-
dance requesting a settlement meeting, to see if this can
be resoplved in a more amicable manner.

I am going to write another, more firm letter tonight, asking that we discuss some kind of settlement, especially since it seems the judge is losing patience with the defendant. I thought that the Rule 11 Sanction motion would have done it, but the judge just keeps giving the defendant more time.

I am open to any and all suggestion.
 


stephenk

Senior Member
well you cant do anything about her response to the complaint until March 31.

If her discovery responses are overdue, file a motion to compel responses and seek monetary sanctions for her not responding on time.

How much is your case worth and why arent you using an attorney?
 
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NancyLou9

Guest
My response to questions...

We aren't using an attorney because we can't afford one. Since the defendant doesn't own her own home, one refuses to take it on a contingency. The only real assets the defendant has are her car, her paycheck and her stock in her employers company. Also, she has some personal goods that could be sold for payment.

I am contemplating a Motion to Compel, but I have written another letter tonight to give her one last chance, so I can show Due Dilegince (sp is wrong I know) to the judge. I am giving her 14 days from the receipt of the letter to send us all discovery requests, including the interrogatories. If I don't receive them on the 14th day (I am sending them with tracking via USPS to show she received them) then I will file the Motion to Compel.

The case is for over $750,000 for a tremendous amount (covering years) of abuse, both physical and emotional, along with some fraud and libel thrown in for good measure.

The extent of her cooperation has been two ex parte letters to the judge, which he says are ex parte in a former notice to her, and her response, which was stricken as a result of my Rule 11 Filing asking that it be stricken. She has written in the letters to the judge that she be permitted to do all of this over the phone, pro se, that she is (in the first letter) unable to afford an attorney and then (in the second letter) afraid to be in the same town as us since she is unfamiliar with the area. (She likes to play the part of the victim.)

I'm going to guess that she's going to mess up her last chance to do something, tho we did ask her again, in this last letter for a Rule 16 pre-trial settlement conferance (for the third time), which the judge had set up for last January, but then cancelled when he decided to give her more time to respond. After this, I don't know what to do...

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I guess I should explain that this is really a BS lawsuit against the defendant and if she would just put up an adequate defense, the judge would probably throw out half of it. My husband's diagnosis is real tho, and he has lost a tremendous amount of wages and retirement due to her actions... I could go on, but I won't bore you with it all...
 
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