Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Subpoena

Please contact my office at 714 363 0220 to set up an appointment. I would like to review your written documentation including any letters, notices, and lawsuits. We handle cases throughout California. We can review your documentation by fax and speak with you by phone.

We will have to review the subpeona.

Re: Subpoena

It sounds as though the attorney(s) for your old company are asking if you will accept service of a subpoena voluntarily. If you don't want to accept the subpoena voluntarily, you don't have to; however, they will send a process server out to your home or place of business to try and serve you. Once served, you MUST appear for the trial. If you are served with a subpoena and refuse to appear, you could be held in contempt of court, fined, and possibly arrested. Your testimony may or may not be helpful to them, but I suspect that your old company will need more than your testimony alone to "win" their case.

Your statement: "I have NO DERSIRE to help them win any case and they have in turn sued me for relocation" makes no sense. One cannot be sued simply because they do not have a desire to help someone else win in litigation. Moreover, I have never heard of someone being sued "for relocation" and don't know what you mean by "relocation."

Re: Subpoena

If your former employer is suing you for anything, you should retain a lawyer to conduct your defense. Ask that lawyer about the subpoena inquiry letter.

Parties considering subpoenaing witnesses will usually contact them beforehand to arrange for service and to sound out whether the witness will be friendly or hostile, the extent of their knowledge, and so forth. If you have been sued by the same party that plans to call you as a witness, however, they might just as well assume from the start that you'll be hostile.

In fact, it occurs to me that there could be something unethical or coercive in the interplay between the suit against you and the proposed testimony.

If you are subpoenaed, you must appear and testify, you must testify truthfully even if it's helpful to the company, and no one is obliged to provide you with an attorney, at least so long as the questioning relates to civil matters and your Fifth Amendment rights are not implicated.