Legal Question in Business Law in California

Not in a California court. The judgment is from North Carolina, so if you have any appellate options you must exercise them in a North Carolina court under North Carolina law.

Note that the fact you could not afford local counsel is probably not grounds to appeal. You may have other grounds. But you surely also have a very limited amount of time in which to bring an appeal, and that time may have expired already.

You should contact a North Carolina attorney about this immediately to find out whether there is anything you can do.

Good luck.

You don't provide enough information to suggest a strategy for dealing with this. Mr. Hoffman is correct that you cannot appeal a NC judgment in CA courts, but that does not mean you cannot challenge the judgment on a number of possible grounds, including lack of personal jurisdiction over you in NC. Just because someone serves you with a lawsuit doesn't mean the court in which the case is pending has jurisdiction over you. Without knowing the facts and circumstances that gave rise to the suit and what happened where, there is no way to say whether you would have grounds to challenge the judgment here in CA.

Whatever you are going to do, however, you have to do it quickly, and you are going to need the help of a lawyer, either to get this set aside, or to look at bankruptcy, unless you are prepared to pay the judgment.

Ditto to both above.

Plus, if you can't afford the counsel you need in both places, you'd better start reading and learning at the Law Library and online to try to figure out what and how to do this. Good luck.

Mr. McCormick makes an important point about personal jurisdiction. Your question doesn't suggest that this is a viable issue for you, but it might be. I would need to know more about the facts. You should consult with a lawyer asap.