Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

I'm going to tell you what the judge is going to tell you, and not what these other lawyers tell you, because they are just telling you what you want to hear.

You had a default judgment entered against you. You were served and had time to respond. You didn't respond. It doesn't matter whether you qualified for a fee waiver or not, you did not respond. By not responding, you consented to the judgment against you. The statute of limitations is an affirmative defense. That means it was your burden to raise it, in a timely and proper manner. Our courts are adversarial in nature. The judge does not step in and do your job for you. Our courts are underfunded, and do not have time, and they are not structured that way anyways. You would not like it if the judge stepped in and started practicing law for your opponent, would you?

The opportunity to raise an affirmative defense is over, because the default judgment has been entered. Mr. Hoffman has responded and mentioned an appeal. I don't know when your judgment was entered, whether the case was a limited civil or an unlimited civil case, or whether you were served with notice of entry of the judgment. The reason that I mention that is because there are strict deadlines and timelines to appeal. An appeal from a default judgment is really a longshot, and the defense you raise must be clear from the paperwork the plaintiff filed, not paperwork in your possession. Appeals are not "do overs."

Some attorneys may offer to file a motion to vacate the default judgment and default. They would presumably base that on a false declaration that they were your attorney at the time and allowed your default to be taken. Personally, I think it's dishonest. I've never done it, but I've seen it done.

As I told you before, you need to sit down and have a personal conversation with a competent attorney regarding these matters. There are a lot of legal issues that cannot be addressed on a bulletin board site like this.

Let me add to what Mr. Roach has said. When I mentioned an appeal in a prior response it was because you had not provided enough information about your case. It was not clear whether you were dealing with a default judgment, a summary judgment, a judgment after trial or, perhaps, something else. Your new question makes it clear that you are talking about a default judgment. As Mr. Roach said, an appeal from a default judgment is extremely unlikely to work.

There are several reasons why a court might grant relief from a default judgment. The declaration of attorney fault that Mr. Roach mentions is one of them, but it is not what I had in mind. (He's right that it would not be available under the circumstances you describe.) You could also base such a motion on the plaintiff's failure to serve you properly if, in fact, you weren't properly served. That does not seem to be the case, though it might be.

If you were properly served but did not respond, then there may not be much you can do except try to pay the judgment, settle with the plaintiffs or go bankrupt. Depending upon the specifics of your case, other options might be available to you. You should consult with a lawyer one-on-one to discuss your case instead of relying on piecemeal assistance from this site.

I sympathize with your plight. Defending against a lawsuit can be expensive and time-consuming. (Though you could have litigated without a lawyer and might have been eligible for a waiver of court costs.) But that does not mean the law will excuse you for not defending yourself when you were supposed to, or that it will give you a second chance now.

The rules are designed to be fair to both sides. If judgment debtors could freely reopen their cases long after the judgments were entered then it would happen all the time. This would make collecting a debt costlier and more time-consuming. That would give defendants an unfair advantage.

The rules we have are designed to balance the rights of the plaintiff against those of the defendant. You may feel that the balance should have been struck differently. Perhaps it should have been. But it wasn't. Your rights are governed by the laws we actually have. Those laws gave you the right to fight back, but it sounds like you decided not to use that right when you could. There may simply not be any good options available to you anymore.

You have gotten very good answers. The key thing here is you had notice of the lawsuit, you applied for a fee waiver, the court said you have too much money or income and you decided you know better than the court and didn't file a response. That is about the ONLY situation in which there is no way to get a default set aside. As for the statute of limitations - as Mr. Roach explained, you have no right to assert the limitations if you don't participate in the lawsuit. Once you knowingly choose not to respond within the 30-days, and the court finds you could have afforded to do so, the statute of limitations are completely and utterly meaningless. You have two options and two options only. Talk to a lawyer in person about whether there is some miracle that will allow you to set aside the default, or file for bankruptcy if you truly cannot afford to pay your judgment debt.