Newbie Help

[SpectreFE]

Yesterday (5/7/14) I received a Certified letter which contained a "Application for entry of default" for a SC action. This was a surprise for many reasons. First, I had no idea I was even being sued. I had never been served any complain nor, had any complaint been attempted to be served to me. Looking in the justice court search, this case was filed on 10/16/2013. The AZ civil laws give 120 days for service which would have been 2/13/2014. The plaintiff did make an attempt to extend however, the motion was denied.

The application for entry of default that I received has a 10 business day response from the date of mailing. I am now 4 days past that since it was originally mailed on 4/23 and I picked it up from the PO on 5/7. (It was CMRRR).

I contacted the courts for guidance and was told that I still needed to file an answer to the complaint which, I have never seen.

The basic is this. How do I respond to this? Can I file a motion to dismiss due to improper service?

Please advise...

Thanks in advance...

 

[Proserpina]

You can try, but isn't that simply avoiding the inevitable?

Your honor, plaintiff did not serve me properly

Sheriff walks over to hand you some papers.

Now you're served.

(the original suit might be dismissed, but that's really not the point)