To answer your questions that you asked of Alice, let me begin by telling you that personal jurisdiction is the authority of a court to make a decision binding on someone. So in other words, your state courts have no authority to make a decision about the matter since the ex-boyfriend is a resident (technically a domiciliary) of New York. So the bottom line is you will have to initiate an action in New York to get the money back. A civil action is a generic term for a law suit. It doesn't matter whether the law suit is in small claims court, or municipa court, or superior court. Thus, when Alice told you to begin a civil process to get the money back, she was saying either go through a small claims court or one of the other civil courts. Next, the time limit on getting the money back was probably three years, so it probably expired. What that means is that once a time limit (Statute of Limitations)has expired then you no longer have any rights whatsoever with regard to that incident. However, since in telephone conversations with you he has admitted owing the money (or the equipment) then an argument can be made that he extended the Statute of Limitations. An affirmative defense is a defense available to a defendant in a civil case. There are various affirmative defenses, and each state has their own. So it is not important right now to tell you all of them. Generally affirmative defenses are used by the defendant (raised) when he or she files a response to the complaint against him or her. If he or she fails to raise the affirmative defense, then he or she loses that defenses. So this has been your very brief introduction to general civil procedure in America. Wasn't that fun?
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Mark B. Replogle
