Can I be sued or have judgements placed against me if I am on disability?
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Can I be sued or have judgements placed against me if I am on disability?
I have had a travel trailer that was voluntarily surrendered. It has been almost a year ago. They have not contacted me about any balanced owed. Can they file a suit or judgement against me if my only income is from disability and retirement benefits? If they can, would it have to be filed in the county I live in or the state that they are in? Also, I have some unpaid credit cards that have contacted me. Can I be sued for them on disability and would a judgement be filed in the county I live in or the state they are in? Is there any way I can check on line or by calling to see if I have any judgements against me?
Asked on June 15, 2011 under Bankruptcy Law, Alabama
Answers:
S.L,. Member, California Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 12 years ago | Contributor
You can be sued despite being on disability. You would have received notice of any lawsuit filed against you because a process server would have delivered the documents to you. Since you have not been sued, there is no judgment against you. If you are sued and fail to timely file an answer to the complaint (complaint is the lawsuit), a default judgment will be entered against you or if you do timely file an answer to the complaint and in the ensuing litigation you lose the case, then a judgment will be entered against you. Judgment will be entered in the court where the lawsuit is filed.
A lawsuit can be filed where the plaintiff resides (plaintiff is the party suing you) or where the defendant resides (you are the defendant if you are sued by another party), or where the claim arose.
Although there may be online companies that can check court records, this would be a waste of money since you were not served with any papers.
I don't know if there is anyway you could check court records online without incurring a fee from the online companies that advertise this service. However, there is a way to check court records in person without incurring any cost. If a lawsuit was filed against you in a court near where you live, you could go or have someone go to the court and look for your name under defendants in the court computer. That will give you the name of the case and the case number. Once you have the case number, you can ask the court clerk to see the file. You won't be able to remove the file from the court, but can read it there and can ask the court clerk to photocopy the entire file or portions of the file that you select.
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