A server left a summons on top of my mailbox, am I legally binded to it?

Question

Last night a server went knocking at my mom's door, my sister told him I did not live there. The server left, and this morning my mom found a court summons for me on an OLD debt. Am I legally binded to respond now, since the summons was not signed for and was left at my moms front mailbox? Hopefully I'm making sense, since I've only had 2 hours of sleep... Thank you in advanced...

Answer 1

You might check the following link to see if the service was proper or not for your state
http://www.megalawserve.com/states/rules.php

You might also go to the court clerks office and request to see the file. Carefully look over the service papers, see what the put in there for the service. If they claim to have handed it to a person etc.

Regardless of how you were served you need to answer the summons in the time allowed to prevent them from getting an automatic default judgment.

Since you say this is an old debt, find out if you are out of SOL (statute of limitations)
http://whychat.5u.com/States/states.html
(follow the link on the bottom of that page to find more links to your state statutes)

If you are out of SOL, include Affirmative Defense of SOL in your answer.
File a counterclaim on them for filing on a time barred debt. If they are reporting on your credit reports and are reporting inaccurately, had violated your rights in any correspondence they have sent you, include those violations in with your counterclaim.

Answer 2

You're generally not legally bound. You may be a victim of "sewer service" where the process server leaves the summons in the mailbox or tosses them in the sewer and signs that affadavit that it was personally served.

The recipient is not required to sign for the summons in must jurisdictions and is rarely asked to do so. The process server signs a sworn statement that they properly identified you as the person named in the summons and personally gave you a copy or attempted to give you a copy.

If the process server signs the affadavit attesting to proper service, the court will take their word for it and the case will proceed against you. If you fail to appear, the creditor will get a default judgement against you. You could appeal that but proving improper service can be very difficult.

However, there are certain types of service that are sufficient if left at the last known address of the person being served. Evictions are an example of this. Normally a suit for recovery of a debt would require personal service. Consult with a local attorney to see what the law says in your case.

Answer 3

This is a catch22 for you. Legally, no your not bound to the summons as they cannot prove you got it unless the serving officer lied and made a notation that they served you personally or forged your signature. On the other hand, they could have waited for you or someone to come out and retrieve it and snapped a photo of that. Typically there are two people involved, one who does the serving and one who serves as a witness. In the end it will be your word against theirs and you will lose. Anyway, its in your best interest to open it and see what it says. Evidently a debtor is filing a petition with the court for judgement against you for the debt. If the debt is yours and they get a judgement, they may get permission from the court to seize assets or attach wages in order to pay for the debt. If the debt is not yours, you will need to have solid proof that the debt was not yours or your responsibility, and go to court and defend yourself. Further, depending on the laws in your area, what court it is and what the charges are for, you may be required to appear and if you fail to do so, the judge can issue a bench warrant for your arrest for contempt of court. Yes, this legal stuff gets very messy.

Answer 4

Yes because you have seen, read and have the summons. They would not have left it there if they believed you. Better to respond then to have a warrant out. Deal with it before it gets worse I dont know what kind of debt we are talking about but if it is a creditor you can always settle just state your number they will work with you they would rather have some money than no money. If you have to pay the full amount then pay it. May take 10 years or whatever but at least your paying it. Can be $5, $10 what you can send as long as they are receiving funds they can't do anything. Stop putting it off. Don't ruin your credit.

Answer 5

You were not properly served. Unless the server can show that you received the summons (e.g., video of you picking it off the mailbox), you're not bound by it.

However, that doesn't mean that you're off the hook. At some point, you will be properly served. You'd be better off just answering this summons, rather than getting into a question of whether you were properly served or not.

Answer 6

most suitable to seek out and get the advice of an lawyer the position you stay. It relies upon on the jurisdiction. Due procedure calls for that the technique server provide the papers to someone over a particular age, living contained in the defendant's significant different and toddlers or the defendant in my opinion, or leave the papers in a conspicuous position after saying the provider and the contents of the papers. merely leaving it contained in the mailbox sounds like an software of a few form to the court docket to quash the provider of procedure.