Re: court hearing

Posted by Creditwrench on February 02, 2002 at 01:40:49:

In Reply to: court hearing posted by Honoras on February 01, 2002 at 23:11:08:

Your post sounds like you don't know much about courtroom proceedure.

You must file a timely answer with the court in order to even be heard in most cases. You need to go to the courthouse and get a copy of the actual paperwork they have already filed with the court and deny in writing in your answer each of their allegations separately. You must give a reason why you deny their allegations.

Once you have a properly constructed and timely filed answer before the court you will have to appear in court on the day set for hearing and the judge will probably set a future hearing date on the matter. The reason that is so is that once a properly constructed and filed denial has been presented to the court no hearing upon the motion can be properly heard by the court. It must be set for an actual trial in most if not all jurisdictions. Once the matter is set for trial the other side will probably file a discovery motion of some type. This means that the plaintiff now wants to know what it is that you are going to pesent in defense to his allegations. I can assure you that you don't want to go to any discovery hearing without an attorney because those things are not intended to be friendly and they will grill you like a hamburger. It is possible that they may ask for an evidentiary hearing or other motions prior to the actual trial if they feel it is warranted.

You also have the right to file motions of your own if you choose to do so and have reason. None of these matters are for the uniniated. You need to involve competent legal assistance unless you are a very experienced pro se litigant.

Your use of the work "validation" suggests that you know almost nothing about what you may be getting yourself into. Validation must have been demanded long before this to be of any value to you. I can't advise you what you should do other than to tell you that if you intend to proceed as you seem bent on doing then you had best go get an attorney, but I can tell you what I would do in a similiar situation as you seem to be describing and that is I would simply cool my heels and let them get their judgment and then once it is final (usually 30 days after the hearing) I would go down to the office of the clerk of the court and I would get court certified copies of the judgment and then I would examine them for proceedural or other errors and then based upon what my analysis told me I would file motion to vacate with the court and prepare to do battle from that time forward.

The reason I would go at it that way is because the movant party must perfect and prove it's case and since they usually don't then I have reason to demand that it be vacated. I can win that way most of the time whereas if I go try to argue with them on their motion for judgment all I am going to do is goof up any chance I had to vacate later.

Doing it that way, I am not likely to have to go to any discovery or other hearings until the court date. There isn't going to be any argument about it in most cases because I have them nailed to the floor. I will have made my points in my motion to vacate and I will have proofs of my argument in quites from Rules of Civil Proceedure and I will have case cites which tells the court how I expect them to rule and why I have the right to expect them to rule that way.

Now you do as you please. I am neither your attorney nor am I an attorney, so all I can tell you is what I would do if I were in your shoes.

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