Just Published - "You've Been Sued!" Second Edition

An excerpt from the recent edition of "You've Been Sued!":

You may have known this law suit was coming, or it may have hit you out of the blue. Either way, you've been sued, and now its up to you to do something. Before you even begin to think about how to prepare an answer, take some time to reflect on whether you were properly served. If a sheriff or a private process server came to your door, asked for you, and then told you that they were serving you with a complaint for a lawsuit – you have very likely been properly served. It doesn't matter whether you were served at work or at home, or in public for that matter, as long as the documents went from the hands of the process server to yours, then you've been properly served and sued.

On the other hand, there are other instances when you may have the documents in your possession but you were never served. For example, if a civil complaint was mailed to you via certified or regular mail; the plaintiff personally gave them to you; or the documents were brought to your house by the sheriff and left with your housekeeper – you have likely not been properly served to begin with. If you were not properly served, you may need to do additional research to be sure how to proceed. If you're still not sure of the correct path, then by all means seek the advice of an attorney. The reason this is important is that if you answer the Complaint then you are in effect accepting the Complaint as valid even though you may disagree. If you do not believe that you were properly served, you may decide to file a Motion to Quash Due to Improper Service. However, if you file an Answer to the Complaint, even though you were not properly served, you likely miss your chance to file that Motion to Quash.

So think it through before preparing an Answer. Filing a Motion to Quash when you have been improperly served may accomplish nothing more than delaying the proceedings. Sometimes, however, slowing down the proceedings is a Defendant's primary goal. The theory is that if a Defendant can throw up enough hoops and hurdles for the Plaintiff, then the Plaintiff might just give up and go home. It happens. There are other circumstances where a Defendant can file a Motion to Dismiss and end a law suit immediately. However, for the purposes of this book we are assuming that the Defendant was properly served, and needs to prepare an Answer

Available now on our association site - The Florida Association of Legal Document Preparers - bookstore. Available soon on Amazon and other online sources. By Ruth Tick, all rights reserved. Copyright 2017.