Lawsense

I think it’s hard sometimes for people to figure out whether someone has actually sued them or whether they’ve just been threatened with a lawsuit. Here are some ways to tell.

You’ve been sued when someone has filed a complaint with the court. In order for the lawsuit to properly begin, you have to be “served” with the complaint. Being served means that you got “official” notice of the lawsuit. I’ll talk about the different types of proper service in another post.

Keep in mind that each court has its own rules about what exactly needs to happen to start a lawsuit — the things I talk about below are general rules, but your state might tweak them slightly. Also, some types of lawsuits, such as restraining orders or protection from abuse order, can start before you actually get notice of them.

You can tell it’s a complaint because at the top of the first page, it will have the name of a court (as in “In the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for the County of Multnomah), the name of the person suing you and your name.

Usually, the complaint will have something called a “summons.” This paper is usually in front of the complaint and tells you you’re being sued, tells you that you should respond within a specific period of time, and gives you information about getting an attorney — usually the number of the state bar’s referral service and/or legal aid.

If you get a letter from an attorney threatening to take legal action against you, that doesn’t mean you’ve been sued. You might be, but the letter isn’t enough to start a lawsuit.

If you get served with a complaint and do nothing, eventually the court will issue a default judgment against you. Basically, the default judgment is the court’s way of saying: “you were told someone was suing you and you were told to respond with your side of the story. Since I didn’t hear anything from you, I am going to assume the plaintiff’s side of the story is true and I am going let the plaintiff win.”

A common reaction to getting sued is, well, not to deal with it. No one wants to get sued and most people don’t really know what to do — so they have a tendency just to ignore the problem.

Not dealing with it is a really bad idea, because it will lead to a default judgment. If you get served with a complaint, you get legal advice right away and I’m not just saying this because I’m a lawyer. Once you get a default judgment against you, it can be extremely hard, or even impossible, to do anything about it later. If someone’s suing you for money, once they get the default judgment, they can start to collect their money.

I know most people don’t have a lawyer, so I’m  going to talk about some ways to find a lawyer and things to think about when hiring a lawyer in a later post.

When a person is not represented by a lawyer in court, then that person is acting pro se.  Pro se means “for oneself” in Latin. In some legal proceedings, like divorces or probate (handling a person’s affairs after they’ve died)  many people appear pro se. Sometimes the court will have written instructions or special forms to help people who are pro se. If you don’t see any forms available, you should ask the clerks (people who work at the courthouse and handle filings). Ask nicely — if the clerks deal with a lot of pro se people, they will appreciate it if you are polite to them.