Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
I was at fault in a car accident almost 2 years ago. Yesterday my 17yr old son called me to tell me that somebody just brought papers to the house saying that I was being sued for personal injury in excess of $ 25000 from the car accident. I ws under the impression that the insurance company paid all claims back at the time of the incident. I have two questions for you. First of all I believe that by giving the complaint to my 17 yr old son makes the service not valid. It that accurate. Second,upon my review of the documents I noticed the date of the incident in the complaint (occuring on or about) was off by about 4 months. How important is the accuracy of the date that the incident occurred?
3 Answers from Attorneys
The date could be important if they failed to file the lawsuit within two years of the incident. As you said almost 2 years ago, it appears to be timely.
Service could be valid if they made due dilligence in serving you, and were unable to serve you. They could serve on an adult and mail the document. But the person must be an adult, that is over the age 18 so serving 17 year old is not sufficient.
In any event, you should get the documents to your insurance company.
These are all nice things that you are telling us, but the fundamental question here is why aren't you tendering this to your insurance company to defend? Sitting around haggling over service is going to lead to a default judgment that you will not be able to easily set aside later.
Stop fussing over procedural details, and turn the Summons over to your insurance company to handle. That's what you paid premiums for. Follow up and make sure they respond timely to the lawsuit.
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