How exactly to answer a complaint (summons)

[Glob]

Again, thank you for your posts. I talked to a lawyer yesterday, and sent him through email the complaint and the answer. He said he would look them over and get back to me today. I don't expect him to represent at this point, but having someone to mentor me in responding to this would hopefully be enough.

Yes, I think that their latest "Discovery" to me is an attempt to trap me, or act as my admittal to this debt. I really don't understand yet why I can't just answer each and every one of their questions with something like "This is not my debt, therefore I cannot provide any documents pertaining to this" It seems to me that the burden of proof in on them, but with all the legal jargon, and procedure, without an attorney even something as straight forward sounding as this could backfire on me.

I'll keep posting here with what is happening. Even if nobody posts here with advice or comments, maybe at least if someone is in a similar situation they can read this and know what NOT to do

 

[Chien]

For the Requests for Admissions, you admit anything that’s true (eg. your name, your residence address – doubt that they asked any of that), deny anything that you don’t personally know for a fact to be true and “deny for lack of information or belief” anything about which you’re uncertain and which has not been conclusively proven to you (probably everything that they’ve alleged, judging from your posts).

Admit.
Deny.
Deny for lack of information or belief.
That's all it has to be. I won't get into objections or "admit X but deny Y" types of responses. Let an attorney see what you have; we can't.

With respect to a Request for Production, while we haven’t seen it, your proposed response would probably be just fine. As a pro se litigant, you’re less constrained by “legalese”. An attorney’s tweaking would probably result in essentially the same response. You’re right; the burden of proof is on them. That’s why you must be careful not to give to them what that can’t come up with themselves.

It’s why you could benefit from a consultation. If it’s too late to do your own discovery and try to demonstrate that they can’t prove their case, you at least don’t want to inadvertently do it for them.

 

[Glob]

I just got back from my pretrial. The Plaintiff said they were going to ask for a Motion of Default Judgement.

Ack, I just noticed I used the wrong wording here. It was NOT a 'Motion for Default Judgement", it was a Motion for Summary Judgement". I know one little word means a world of difference. Sorry about that, I was tired and nervous.

These are all questions that I will ask the lawyer today when either he calls me back, or I call him.

 

[Chien]

If they don’t prevail on the default motion (and I don’t understand that one, if you’ve answered and have a trial date) . . .

Ok, now I understand that, but it’s not “one little word”, and I don’t understand the Motion for S/J and the discovery. Something is wrong with the timing and what you say has been filed. Unless your Answer was deficient/defective and allows them to treat all disputed facts as admitted, this just gets more convoluted. This really is not a situation where online assistance can do what you need. Talk to an attorney. Post back, for clarification, if helpful, but you need someone to see the physical file, in my opinion. No offense to you, but the procedural distinctions that must be recognized at this stage are pretty important.

 

[pbmts999]

What happened.

Glob - So how did this turn out? I am in the exact same situation as you were. I have prepared my answer and will file it next week. Now I am in the proecess of determining how to prepare a request for the production of documents. This looks like it is a little tougher then the answer portion. Would you happen to have a copy of your request I could view to get some idea of the format etc... The information you posted was very helpful in getting me started on this myself. It can be very intimidating dealing with the law.

thanks

 

[Antigone*]

This site has very good info

Please do not resurrect dead threads.