Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Show up in court, unless you were not served in time under the law. "Mail box centers" are "commercial mail receiving agencies" (CMRAs). "Every person receiving private mailbox receiving service from a CMRA in this state shall be required to sign an agreement, along with a USPS Form 1583, which authorizes the CMRA owner or operator to act as agent for service of process for the mail receiving service customer. Every CMRA owner or operator shall be required to accept service of process for and on behalf of any of their mail receiving service customers, and for two years after termination of any mail receiving service customer agreement. Upon receipt of any process for any mailbox service customer, the CMRA owner or operator shall (A) within 48 hours after receipt of any process, place a copy of the documents or a notice that the documents were received into the customer's mailbox or other place where the customer usually receives his or her mail, unless the mail receiving service for the customer was previously terminated, and (B) within five days after receipt, send all documents by first-class mail, to the last known home or personal address of the mail receiving service customer. The CMRA shall obtain a certificate of mailing in connection with the mailing of the documents. Service of process upon the mail receiving service customer shall then be deemed perfected 10 days after the date of mailing." Cal. Business & Professions Code � 17538.5(d) If the plaintiff forgot to add 10 days, who knows, maybe they served you too late.

Another "Microsoft Tech Support Answer" from Mr. Stone - one that completely correct, but doesn't answer the question asked. Your question relates to the defects in the proof of service and what you can do about it. The answer is that you can file a motion to quash service. You would need a sworn declaration from the owner of the facility that he has no such employee and that they never actually received the papers for you. If, however, they actually recieved the papers on the date shown, and the process server then mailed to papers to you at that address, and you received actual notice of the papers, then the mere fact that they got the name of the person wrong doesn't matter. The service is good and you must respond. I'm curious, however, why you have a court date so soon after being served. Normally you have thirty days to respond, plus ten when sub-served as Mr. Stone mentioned, and then you don't have a court date for weeks or months after that.

You can waste money on motions to quash service that will simply result in you being re-served 'properly', or you can use it to hire an attorney to defend the case. If serious about doing that, feel free to contact me.

How about a practical answer. The Courts are very rarely interested in hearing technical objections from non-lawyers trying to do things like get out of being served. Since you obviusly knew about the lawsuit, it is not clear why you did not answer. When you move to quash service the Court will probably ask you that question. The Court will also probably ask you whether you will agree to accept service at that time. If you won't, the Court may not grant you the relief you are requesting. The Plaintiff's lawyer may also just serve you right then and ther. Rather than wasting time on money, you should probably (a) get a lawyer, and (b) have him talk to the plaintiff's lawyer about more time to respond. With very rare exceptions, it is better to spend your time and resources on the real issues in a lawsuit, and not fight over technical points that can be easily fixed.

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I don't mean to be rude, but am curious as to whether you intend to continue to represent yourself, or run to Lawguru and post a question each time you run into a snag?