Judgemet against me in small claims court- never received a notice

[ta66]

Hello,

Bit of a long story, but I will be as detailed as possible. I was peviously employeed by a collision shop. My position was the appraiser. We received a car to be repaired which was being covered by the insurance company. Vehicle had taken a lot longer to be repaired then what the insurance company was willing to pay for the rental, the owner of the body shop had agreed to pay the extra cost of the rental to the owner.

Fast forward to today. I have received a call from a paralegal stating that there is judgment against the owner of the shop and myself for the sum of $1365.00 plus fees CAD. He mentioned that this case had went to small claims court and the owner of the shop did not show up.

My questions are this.... Am I held responsible for the amount owing, will this affect my credit, what can happen if I choose to ignore this ?

Keep in mind that I was only an employee there, I had no idea untill today that this went to small calims court. I should also mention that the business has been closed since September and I beleive the owner filed for bankruptcy.

Any help will be appreciated
thanks

 

[Rexlan]

You are liable for a judgment against you.
Your credit is hammered until resolved.
It will not go away.
Ignoring it is more than stupid.
Make good choices today to prevent huge problems tomorrow.

Check with the clerk to see how you were served (or not served).

If not served, you need to file to have the judgment set aside for failure of notice.

If you were served you are SOL.

Shop closed does not matter.

 

[ta66]

Thanks for the reply.

I am at the small claims court office right now, they told me on the phone they will give me a copy of the notice which was served. I defintley am not going to ignore something which is not my responsibility and affect my credit.

I thank you again

 

[Rexlan]

If you were properly served, then no-show- you have a difficult task ahead. You must petition the court to set the judgment aside because .....X,Y,Z. The court will not be easily persuaded to disturb the judgment and the fact that you didn't see it on the door, the dog ate it, the kids threw it out, etc ... does not matter.

If the notice is defective, wrong address, name, left on the wrong house, etc. then you can get it set aside.

However, all this will do is reschedule it and you will get a chance to defend the action against you. Just because you were only an employee isn't necessarily enough but you will need to deal with that when the time comes or get a local attorney to assist you.

Good luck.