Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Restraining order against a lwayer?

First, I don't think you can deal with this effectively unless you know what's going on, and you cannot know what's going on unless you stop dodging the process server and accept and read what's being served. It could range from totally harmless to notice of a debtor's examination, which if you failed to appear you could be found in contempt of court and arrested.

More likely than not, however, you are being served with a summons and complaint. Your description of the series of events makes that likely - if a matter is in arbitration or scheduled to go to arbitration, the matter wouldn't be before the courts and therefore there would probably be nothing for the court to act upon one way or another, i.e., a court cannot dismiss a case that isn't before it because the case is in arbitration and not in the court system.

If the case was before the court at some time, there are two possible forms of dismissal - "with prejudice" and "without prejudice." If a case is dismissed with prejudice, a later attempt to re-open the same subject matter between the same parties is improper, and you can raise the prior dismissal with prejudice as a defense. However, as with most defenses, if the defendant fails to respond to summons and raise his defenses, he may end up waiving them and a judgment may be entered.

On the other hand, if a dismissal is "without prejudice," this means the plaintiff hasn't had a resolution one way or the other, and is free to re-file the case and the prior dismissal is not a defense to re-trial.

"Double jeopardy" is a criminal law concept, and has no direct application to any civil matter. In civil cases, there is a somewhat analogous concept called 'res judicata" which is simply legal Latin for "already-adjudged matters" and dismissal with prejudice is one way claims and issues become res judicata. The other ways include trial and judgment, and I think an arbitration award will also put the res judicata stamp on a disputed matter.

For your own good, you should pull your head out of the sand and find out what's going on, probably requiring that you retain a lawyer to review the old and new files and assess your situation.

If the action against you is groundless, your attorney may suggest a suit for malicious prosecution or abuse of process. However, I'm inclined to think you may have a case against you that you need to defend before your accuser gets a default judgment, or worse.

Re: Restraining order against a lwayer?

If the case was dismissed with prejudice, no further action can be taken. You can not get a restraining order against the lawyer for writing letters. We would need to review these letters to be able to assist you further. We also need the case number of the case that was dismissed to track what happened in it. Please contact us if you need further assistance.