Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California

I received a Plaintiff's First Set of Special Interrogatories to Defendant, Plaintiff's First Set of Request for Inspection and Production of Documents & Request for Admissions from the attorney who is suing me for a debt. This is after I filed a General Denial. My questions are: #1, how important is it to respond within the 30 days after service. #2. Do I have to respond to all 3 documents within the 30 days?, #3. At this point is it best to hire an attorney, or are the responses to these documents something I can do on my own? I'm pretty much denying everything since I have no idea what the debt is for, and can't really provide them with any documents, because I dont have any.

Thank You


Asked on 1/03/12, 2:45 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

1. It is very important if any of the requests are improper, because you waive any objection to the request if you don't respond on time. In addition, the facts requested to be admitted in the RFA, can be ordered deemed admitted if not denied in a response served on time; the catch is if you deny them, and they prove them true at trial, you may pay attorneys fees for proving those facts even if they would not be entitled to attorneys fees otherwise. So it is especially important to answer the Requests for Admissions accurately, carefully and on time. 2. Yup. 3. Yup. You have no chance of winning without an attorney, and discovery is where many a pro per party loses their case, either by screwing up the responses to their detriment, or by failing to follow the complex rules of discovery and getting sanctions that give the case to the other side.

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Answered on 1/03/12, 3:03 pm


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