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faithnlve

Member
What is the name of your statevt. Lets say you are being sued and you answered and filed a counterclaim. Lets say you lose to the plaintiff, but, your counterclaim was never acknowledged in court. Is this grounds for appeal or can the judge decide not bring up or just ignore the counter suit? Judge never acknowledged anything in regards to countersuit. Is this right?
 


dcatz

Senior Member
Is this grounds for appeal?

No, or at least probably not, because the answer is also no to

or can the judge decide not bring up or just ignore the counter suit?

There must be some disposition of matters properly before the court, even if that means that they are dismissed as frivolous or lacking in merit or granted and treated as an off-set against the case in chief or whatever else might have been done. The operative phrases may be “acknowledged in court” (there may have been a disposition that you failed to recognize) and “properly before the court” (there may have been a legitimate error – yours or the court’s).

You only provide basis for a yes/no answer and speculation. Review the court record and find out what ruling was made on the counterclaim. With Small Claims, the easiest and best way to do that is commonly to review the physical file for a single paper showing the court’s ruling on all matters. If there was actually an error, you might first consider a Motion for Reconsideration, but one can only speculate about an explanation.
 

faithnlve

Member
I called the courts. (Remember it was the company and US whom were being sued). To my surprise the judge is claiming it was settled through mediation. We did not settle but, since we no longer owned the business it was the rights of the new owner to agree to settle. The new owner and the plaintiffs came in together. I did find out that because the "new" owner of the business is willing to pay the bogus invoice (good friends), then the judge ruled for the plaintiff. The counter suit by the defendants (US) was "defendants name only" vs "plaintiffs name only" and the business name was not included. But our counter suit did include actions of plaintiff taking money while the business was under our ownership. So "IF" we appealed would there be any grounds to do so? Plus if the plaintiff embezzled money can we still pursue that at all now??! New owner is against us doing anything against his best friends. Thanks again.
 

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